Six years ago now, I wrote a post about mashing up Werewolf: The Apocalypse and Cyberpunk 2020, with the aim of bringing out the game that was always latent in Werewolf but could never quite speak its name: the PCs are terrorists, fighting for gaia. (See also here.)
For perhaps understandable reasons, White Wolf always covered Werewolf in layers of guff about controlling one's anger and taming the beast inside, not to mention an unnecessarily overcomplicated and vague mythology and metaplot, and also watered down its aggressively environmentalist message with the notion that the garou were actually supposed to be the spiritual defenders of mankind as well as protectors of the natural order. There was just far too much going on in it, and not enough effort made to properly explain things in a coherent fashion (a common problem with the Old World of Darkness books in general).
One day I would like to 'OSR-ize' the game and strip it down to something more streamlined and straightforward to understand and run. Cut the crap about spirit worlds and "the impergium" and what not: the PCs are werewolves, and werewolves hunt and kill humans in order to protect the natural world. They are essentially eco-terrorists, and a werewolf campaign would hinge around plotting and executing violent escapades in order to stave off development, make exploitation of natural resources economically unviable, and "send messages".
At the same time, the threat facing the PCs would not merely be the reactions of law enforcement, corporate security and the like; it would be the forces of "spiritual war" - the digital, anti-natural armies of drones, AIs, cyborgs, coders and technocrats bent on divorcing humanity from the physicality of the world and subjecting nature itself to quantification, calculation and ultimately control. For such forces, the werewolves, as the embodiment of the unknown and uncontrollable, would be the ultimate enemy - to be hunted down at all costs.
The "apocalypse" here would therefore be very real - on the one hand, the extinction of species and the destruction of ecosystems, and on the other, the subsumption of "the natural" itself into a governable, legible, commodifiable and exploitable resource. In this, I think the game would fit with the current zeitgeist rather well, but if you don't want to think about the wider context, you still get to do the David Naughton routine and go apeshit with big dice pools.
as a former werewolf player & DM, that sounds much better than the original game. My only concern is that as you describe it, the game lends itself to semi-evil PCs (a la arnold k's terrorist druids), which I find is very difficult to do well long-term.
ReplyDeleteI agree, and some thought would need to be devoted to resolving that.
DeleteI'm curious when you say "as you describe it" was that not also how the original was described? I mean, the Red Talons... but even the concept of characters being "semi-evil" seems very open to interpretation and a matter of perspective. Okay so a bunch of humies on an oil rig get blown up. Maybe _Greenpeace_ wouldn't just consider that collateral damage, but given the output of the refined petroleum may be literally killing millions-- anyway, you get the idea. How is this focused concept more semi-evil than the original, I may be missing the point and for that I apologise.
DeleteI think (and it's a long time now since I've read it) the basic idea of the original was that the PCs were supposed to be sort of nobly struggling against their baser urges and using their power to fight baddies. That's always how it felt to me anyway.
DeleteApologies for the late comment in this thread, but i feel like i should write something because i really enjoyed this post and the ensuing discussion.
Delete@wivren IMHO running an "eco-terrorist" version of Werewolf would probably not be much more difficult than running a Vampire the Masquerade game where PC's often play monstrous and *evil* and demonic characters (i.e., the Tzimisce clan, the Sabbat sect, etc.)
@noisms I really enjoyed your take on a hypothetical OSR version of WTA. Regarding your take on the game and interpretations:
back in the day (late 1990s) my RPG group went deep into the World of Darkness games, mostly Vampire, but there was also a Werewolf campaign at some point. Interestingly enough, our interpretation of WTA was always that the werewolves *were* terrorists at odds with the rest of the world. Although elements like the spirit world and the PC's struggle with the inner beast were also in the picture, it's funny to see how our interpretation of the game actually came close to what you're now proposing here.
All down to interpretation, I guess. In that same era I also came across kids from another local RPG group running their own WTA campaign, and they were having fun playing it as a sort of trigger-happy superhero scenario, like a gothic dark version of Captain Planet and furry Marvel superheroes fighting evil oil corporations. Not my cup of tea, but they were having fun.
Apologies for the late comment in this thread, but i feel like i should write something because i really enjoyed this post and the ensuing discussion.
Delete@wivren IMHO running an "eco-terrorist" version of Werewolf would probably not be much more difficult than running a Vampire the Masquerade game where PC's often play monstrous and *evil* and demonic characters (i.e., the Tzimisce clan, the Sabbat sect, etc.)
@noisms I really enjoyed your take on a hypothetical OSR version of WTA. Regarding your take on the game and interpretations:
back in the day (late 1990s) my RPG group went deep into the World of Darkness games, mostly Vampire, but there was also a Werewolf campaign at some point. Interestingly enough, our interpretation of WTA was always that the werewolves *were* terrorists at odds with the rest of the world. Although elements like the spirit world and the PC's struggle with the inner beast were also in the picture, it's funny to see how our interpretation of the game actually came close to what you're now proposing here.
All down to interpretation, I guess. In that same era I also came across kids from another local RPG group running their own WTA campaign, and they were having fun playing it as a sort of trigger-happy superhero scenario, like a gothic dark version of Captain Planet and furry Marvel superheroes fighting evil oil corporations. Not my cup of tea, but they were having fun.
ReplyDeleteDark Streets & Darker Secrets is pretty rules light, for Vampire there's The Blood Hack. Sigil & Shadow is sort of adjacent, Esoteric Enterprises is fun but falls apart in my experience.
I quite liked the dice pool element of the World of Darkness games, although the system itself is not great. I'd like to retain that aspect.
DeleteOne option would be to use the simplified mechanics in the back of the books for the other WoD systems. They use the same dice pool mechanic but don't have the more ridiculous mechanical complications.
DeleteI forgot those existed, but you're right.
DeleteTake my money.
ReplyDeleteYeah WW always has good ideas but so much shit is glommed onto it that it's hard to use. Would love to see a stripped down Changeling or Wraith in the same vein.
ReplyDeleteFor a name the first thing that came to mind was "A Wolf Age" as a reference to how the run-up to Ragnarok is described in the Edda.
Yes, Changeling and Wraith are also crying out for a re-do.
DeleteYess!! I so wanted a new, modern version of Wraith (until I started reading into it, then I began to drown in the lore and I felt like moving on).
DeleteJust the right level of cheesy. This game can be sophisticated (or not), but it does not benefit from being subtle or restrained.
ReplyDeleteAgreed!
DeleteIt's not too cheesy but it sounds almost exactly like Apocalypse World. Maybe Werewolf 2040 or something like that?
ReplyDeleteA good Apocalypse Werewolf game needs a proper list of suggested reading, and the way you describe it makes me think of one book: *Islands of Abandonment*, by Cal Flyn. In one chapter, she describes how the abandon of communist led countries like Estonia to abandon farms, and how in three decades, forests returned and they had a positive impact as a carbon sink, and also describes how European settlers in America, when found pristine and "virgin" forests, they were not actually virgin, but forests that appeared after the genocide they caused made farms to be abandoned. So, these pristine forests were not virgin but post-apocalyptic.
ReplyDeleteYes, that comes across in the book 1491 as well. Even the Amazon was a lot more settled and cultivated prior to European arrival than it is today.
DeleteI think another essential read would be The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson, the central theme of which is eco-terrorists (with possible support in high places) making it increasingly unviable to run environmentally damaging operations, though there's far more to the book than that, including several short & essentially non-fiction chapters on stuff like what would be required to pump ocean water to the top of Antarctica to keep the levels from rising.
DeleteLess pertinent, but this also made me think of an article I read lately about the various more extreme (though still nonviolent) environmental protests groups emerging lately, from Insulate Britain onwards, all of which seem to consider of the same dozen or so people.
Interesting. I like Kim Stanley Robinson. Not heard of that one.
DeleteEco-terrorism of a more violent variety is definitely coming, I think.
I'm very suspicious of anything written by Kim Stanely Robinson ever since I read The Gold Coast - written in 1988, set in 2027, the plot hangs on the fact that the characters spend most of their time away from home, and are hence unable to contact one another. For the record, mobile phones were first commercially available in 1983.
DeleteThat said, Ministry for the Future is well worth reading.
Ha! Hadn't heard of that one. I like his Mars novels and one called The Years of Rice and Salt. He's a good writer, even if his plots sometimes need work...
DeleteIt was a nicer time when not everything had to be dumbed down for people.
ReplyDeleteThere's dumbing down and then there's correcting fundamental flaws in layout, organisation and writing.
DeleteI always thought that one could run a Werewolf game using this Laser and Feelings hack : https://penguinking.itch.io/radical-catgirl-anarchy
ReplyDeleteI remember that David J Prokopetz guy from the rpg.net days. Amazing he's still around.
DeleteAnd how long before you get raided for creating a "training manual" / subversive simulation against the powers that be? I'll get my tin-hat.
ReplyDeleteHa!
DeleteAlthough part of my mind believes the Warmaster himself is likely to appear at such a title declaring for chaos, I think it's a winner. Is what it says on the tin. The cheese: a feature.
ReplyDeleteYou can offset any discomfort with a properly pretentious epigraph alluding to shepherding the near lifeless earth to rest, the wereboys fighting to the last against encroaching dismemberment by 1s and 0s:
"Your right eye is the Evening Boat, your left eye is the Morning Boat
Your eyebrows are the Ennead, your brow is Anubis
The back of your head is Horus, your fingers Thoth
Your braided tress is Ptah-Sokar"
it's Lanthanum Chromate with canids innit? Or at least the story of Hachikō
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DeleteLanthanum Chromate with canids - bingo!
DeleteApocalupus.
ReplyDeletePenanggal Costume Ball
ReplyDeleteKali Yugawolf
Thaumaturge Accelerator
Lemosynian Chimera
Dream Goblin
just sayin'
> the PCs are werewolves, and werewolves hunt and kill humans in order to protect the natural world. They are essentially eco-terrorists, ... the threat facing the PCs would not merely be the reactions of law enforcement, corporate security and the like; it would be the forces of "spiritual war" - the digital, anti-natural armies of drones, AIs, cyborgs, coders and technocrats.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of how we played TMNT: we were spirit animals created by magic to defend the natural world and human beings from the corporations, governments, and the evil aliens masquerading as humans. Our GM was an aboriginal punk kid who loved They Live. He was a righteous dude.
We once played a game of Kingdom to determine what happened 50 years after the end of a 5e campaign. In the campaign I'd played an animal-obsessed ranger who, in the final game, had multi-classed as a druid so that he could take animal form. At the end of the game of Kingdom, in which the country had been heavily industrialised by a Beholder mage, my ranger/druid stole the show by turning up in the form he'd spent the last couple of decades in - a blue whale eco-terrorist - and trashing the Beholder's capital.
DeleteWere-blue whale. Now there's a concept.
Delete@Anonymous3 November 2022 at 04:05 " you just left me wishing I had played in your TMNT campaign. Also, it sounds like your GM was a truly awesome dude!
DeleteBlogger won't let me sign in on Safari, even though I have a blogspot blog and a google account...
ReplyDeleteANYway, I love this idea, and when I read the title, I thought it might be an Apocalypse World engine (PbtA) based game. So big dice pools wouldn't do it for me, but the "yes, and" of an improvisational game seems just what the doctor ordered. A game like this would be even more relevant (and perhaps resonant) than when it was originally published in the 1990s, I'll reckon.
There is a nice sort of symmetry in running games about the apocalypse using Apocalypse World.
DeleteAgreed! I just remembered Wolf Hounds, though it’s not quite eco-terrorists against the laleeluleilow, but it could be… https://dfortman.itch.io/wolf-hounds
DeleteThanks for the recommendation!
DeleteIn my experience running WoD games throughout the '90s, they always tend to devolve into super-powered gunfights (often with cops). Of all of them, WW was definitely the one that lent itself most to an over-the-top, vid combat mentality.
ReplyDeleteI've often considered how to B/X-ify Vampire; Werewolf, though, always seemed too simplistic. Maybe I lack imagination.
To be honest the "super-powered gunfights with cops" thing always used to happen in our CP:2020 and Shadowrun games, too. I think it was youth and a lack of imagination. Nowadays it would be very different.
DeleteWell, sure, of course. But WoD is supposed to be "dealing with the angst of being a monster" and balancing one's humanity against the beast (well...with regard to Vampire and Werewolf anyway).
DeleteCP2020 and SR were ALWAYS supposed to be about shoot-outs with The Man (corps) and their stooges (law enforcement).
; )
There's so much I like about this pitch. I've played a little WoD, including Werewolf, but never really "got it". Turns out that's because it wasn't sold to me as "werewolf eco-terrorists".
ReplyDeleteI like:
PCs explicitly pursuing a pro-Gaia agenda that has real tension. Do the ends justify the means? etc.
The "spiritual war/apocalypse" angle you've described elsewhere.
Drones.
The baked-in prospect for bloody, tooth-and-claw violence.
Over here, very regular stories about old growth logging, pipelines and dams for hydroelectricity projects drive home how many perspectives there are to these issues. There could be tensions between the "indigenous" garou and those True Believers who have sought out the curse by choice, to better pursue their activism. In terms of the PC's antagonists, the will be tensions between the blue collar types, who are proud of their identity, providing for a perhaps-distant family, and the technocrats and technologists who want to replace the unionising wetware with drones. And then there's the ultimate antagonist, the anti-Gaia AI. So many ideas.
Yeah, I really like the anti-Gaia AI angle on it. There was a kind of proto version of that in Changeling with the "autumn people" (technocrats, scientists and managers) who were destroying the fae with their banality.
DeleteThis is a great concept and, I think the best way to do Werewolf. I briefly got involved in a Werewolf thread on another forum and got to listen to some chucklehead tell me that the idea of playing eco-terrorists is too morally ambiguous for today's gamers. 9_9 Environmentally minded werewolves have to just be peaceful and pin their faith on recycling, apparently.
ReplyDeleteWell, I personally always considered that this is what the original game should be about (and I think that was its' creator opinion as well). Though, of course, as a friend once said, it wasn't quite new even when it was released. But if done well...
ReplyDeleteOne problem old WW always had was trying to run into too many different directions at once - and I think old WoD suffered from it periodically with trying juggling too many storylines from many lineages. And I don't think that adding CP (Taslorian's ?) would help with this. ;PP
Also, the theme you're suggesting at the end lines seems to be more in tune with their Changeling themes... But, well again, they created a hot mess - though quite a pretty one...
Ьшлу
Yeah, totally. Each of the WW books is 1000 good ideas, none of which are properly followed through.
DeleteI partially agreee with this. If I look at the World of Darkness setting as it came about, it was very original, aesthetically strong, with deep and fairly coherent storylines and campaign seeds. When Mage the Ascension came out, I remember buying the book to use as source material for already running Vampire and Werewolf campaigns, and I really enjoyed the sub-setting, but a lot of the philosophical and metaphysical layers didn't properly fit with the rest of the campaign world unless you did some tweaking. By the time I got my hands on Wraith, i knew they had completely lost the plot - *another* layer of cosmology, parallel to the one that had already been established in the previous three sourcebooks... WTF? also, Wraith was unplayable. not good. Changeling also had issues. Like @Anonymous16 November 2022 at 00:29 said, too much stuff going on at the same time, could have used a lot of trimming. Out of curiosity, I'll have to check out the latest VTM edition to see if they addressed these issues.
DeleteA lot of them are, if not unplayable, at least very difficult to parse. Quite inspiring in some ways, though, especially Changeling and Wraith.
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