Good game, but not as inspiring, 30 Mar 2008
I had never played the old Werewolf game, having found Mage: The Sorcer's Crusade, to be immensely complex, I wasn't going to touch WtA with a cattle prod.
Having read Vampire: The Requiem, I eagerly awaited for my copy of Werewolf: The Forsaken. I had accidently gotten "The Pure" supplement book for Christmas, and read it while I waited for the Christmas crunch to die off, and then ordered Werewolf: The Forsaken. I found "The Pure" had released a wealth of ideas from my mind, so needless to say, I couldn't wait to read about the other half of Werewolf society; as well as finding out about the spirit world, Totems and auspices.
The book is laid out excatly as Vampire: The Requiem. With a small introduction, setting (explaning Werewolf society), character, special rules and systems and Storytelling; as well as two appindecies.
The book and game are great, it's just the Storytelling chapater, which for me wanting to tell stories, is the weakest part of the book. It's "sample" stories are anything but inspiring. The game is awsome, I believe, I love the idea behind it, the idea of werewolves and spirits mingling, a paradise world that werewolves had once ruled, shape changing and the coolest thing of all, Werewolf mythology.
The World of Darkness Rulebook is needed for this book, but I found trying to make a character hard, after all what does a werewolf need with rescources? Contacts and fame? What can ignorant mortals do for spirit rearing creatures of the night?
Could of generated a wealth of ideas had the Storytelling chapater been more indepth. I give it four stars because I find the premesis of the game to be amazing, much better than Vampire: The Requiem, but lacking insperation in that single chapter. Also, I don't like the idea of having to play with a lot of players, prefably five; one for each auspice. I've never had five friends in one place!
Great book, cool game, poor Storytelling chapter.
Remember you need the World of Darkness Rulebook for this game.
WtF, no, serriously: 'WtF' is its name., 14 Feb 2007
Yeah, laugh, we all did - either nobody at White Wolf noticed that the new incarnation of Werewolf would be forever referred to as 'WtF', or they did it on purpose, frankly, I'd hate to have to call which it is.
What about the product itself? The book is dull on the outside, but the cover keeps the pages together and we can't really ask more than that.
The 300 odd (some very odd) pages are printed in black and brown inks - the brown text is mostly in a scrawly looking typeface that is supposed to evoke thoughts of Savage Fury(tm). It's actually pretty readable compared to the special fonts of the other three supers books of the nWoD.
The book is solid and shows high production values throughout, it will stand years of play. The artwork within is a mixed bag, some of it - no, most of it is top-hole, but here and there we are let down. One full-page image in particular sticks in my mind - I nearly expect to see Scooby-Doo in the background somewhere - it's just cartoony.
This being a White Wolf book, it is stocked to the gunwales with bad fiction. I've yet to meet anyone who knows why, but it's always there - like an uncle at a wedding.
Hold on tight: Werewolves are no longer just violent hippies out to defend Mother Earth (Hooray).
In this brand new WoD, werewolves are actually attractive as player characters.
It seems that way back when, there was a paradise of sorts where material and spiritual co-existed, in a fairly violent law-of-the-jungle sort of way. Long story short, a subset of werewolves (Uratha as they style themselves now) destroyed this paradise by killing the being that enforced its laws - it was one of those 'damned if you do and damned if you don't' things. So now they're damned - or 'Forsaken' if you see.
Today, the descendants of the original Uratha are the guardians of the material from the spiritual, and the spiritual from the material. They also spend a lot of time fighting other Uratha over Loci - spiritual Checkpoint Charlies that are highly prised.
It is a fascinating and deep setting light-years ahead of the old WtA. It alone is worth the entire WoD reboot.
Characters in WtF are divided into 'Auspices', that is, five groups differentiated by the lunar phase phase under which the Uratha transformed for the first time. Rahu - of the Full Moon are the greatest warriors, whilst Elodoth of the Half-Moon are gifted judges and diplomats. Of course, it is easy and fun to play across these stereotypes. (Incidentally, I too would be more comfortable with the traditional four, rather than five phases of the moon - but White Wolf want all of their supers to have five 'clans').
A Werewold has no choice about his auspice (though the player does, of course) but chooses a tribe - a political and social affiliation, and possibly a Lodge - a sect within a tribe.
Auspices, Tribes and Lodges affect which gifts (superpowers by any other name) a Werewolf can learn, and how hard it is for him o do so. If you are familiar with any of the other nWoD supers, you will know how all this works.
I like this product lots - it is good. It, like all of the nWoD games is so much better than the old WoD that any comparisons are worthless, they are utterly different games (these games are good!) and no game has benefited more from the reboot than Werewolf - it is a game people will actually want to play now.
It is not quite as easy as Vampire for a new player, I think, but it is the best game to start with (other than a mortal game).
I suggest you buy it.
Werewolf the Apocalypse PC edition., 13 Jan 2006
This book was a great dissapointment for me, I had been a long time Werewolf the Apocalypse fan and was happy when they ended the old line for a new updated version and I was really looking forward to it.
Rules wise the game is much better and more organised than Apocalypse, however if all you want is nice rules, you'd be better of using a D20 style game as to me and many gamers I know Werewolf and White Wolf books where about the story.
This book has no soul, it barely hints at anything of worth, the designers having washed their hands of metaplot. Great if you have no more aspiration than running local Werewolf gang based warfare, not so good if you are into Epic games that run on and on. I also named this review the PC edition, as to me that seems to have been the main goal, lets drop all real indications of true darkness from the game so we don't have to put Mature minds only on the books anymore.
To make matters worse the Crinos form has been nerfed to appease Vampire players due to the multi-fomat ideal behind this edition, which is an emperors clothes situation if I ever heard of one. No plot, no depth, but you can be a Vampire and Werewolf in the same group so that makes it cool right.. yeah, whatever.
Basically if you never played Werewolf the Apocalypse you might find some merit in it, however I advise all former WtA who really understood the game, used the Septs e.t.c to stay well clear of WtF, you'll only be disapointed.
A truly stunning update, 19 Mar 2005
Within White Wolf's World of Darkness series Vampire had always been dominant with games such as Werewolf taking a background role for many groups. This has been largly due to the less familiar setting of the wilderness along with the simple fact that the rules were just too complex for all by the mose die hard WOD fan to fully uterlise.
The second incarnation of Werewolf - The Forsaken rectifies both these issue as well as smoothing out many of the issues with the background and mechanincs that have impaired an otherwise solid RPG.
Unlike the recent Vampire update - The Requiem there is more to this book that mearly a sleeker version of the old. The whole Werewolf mythos has been completly overhauled, with completly new background and history. The Lupine (wolf born) side of Werewold has been totally scrapped which can only be a good thing. I never knew anyone to really play Lupine and it only ever served to further complicate an already messy system of abstract mechanics.
The spirit element of the game has been retained but rather that the wolfs being the children of mother earth and defenders of the natural world they are now the ones responsable for the destruction of the garden of eden. They are hunted by their own kind had bond by spirit oaths that predate the earliest records.
Finally the Forsaken have many a new enemy to contend with. Gone are the days of Vampire hunting. The new book even suggest it possibe to form allianceswith such creatures. The greates foe of the Forsaken are the Pure. These are other Werewolfs that did not take part in the destruction of paradise and seek the forsake so that they might be brought to Justice. This offers the oppertunity for real clash of the titans style battles between raging Garu that never really worked in the older system
All in all WW have managed to take all the potential from thier previous game and mold it into a strong, simple and effective RPG that stands as a strong contender for the best WOD game to date
Let us hope that the upcoming Mage: The Awakening maintains the increadably high standards that this and other recent WOD titles have displayed
ENEMIES A PLENTY, 08 Feb 2005
The book is split into four main chapters the first deals with the undead trying to give ideas and settings for the undead and emphashing the many differnt ways you can use them. The major undead not included being Vampires. Also included are rules for creating undead this gives you the ability to tailor the undead to suit your parties style of play and expirance from the single possed undead to ravaging hordes of zombies. The only thing is it does go on a bit and can be a bit long winded.
The next section deals with the Hunters giving you ideas on how to set them up as oppenants to your charachters with various ways of working and if your players are the hunters it gives you ways to manipulate them. This is a very good section well worth the inclusion in the book and a must have for supernatrual PC games.
The next section deals with cults and I think gets it right on what and how cults operate and its sujjestions on how they should be played I think are spot on. The only thing I might have a problem with is the way its stats that the leader is the glue that holds it all togatherand if they die the cult scatters is wrong. To be honest if the leader dies they become a saint and a new leader will quickly arise perhaps more dedicated than the original.
The last chapter deals with true out and out Monsters for you to play with. It mainly deals with the way to use monsters in your game and how to set the scene. It also tries to get you to think of an origin and story for each monster to make it a more fun expirance than to alsways keep on just dropping in the next mad killing machine for the players to clean up. If you want to do just want to do that they include almost a dozen monster already written up to drop into any story. There is no set system that you absoulate must use to create each monster and it encourages you to expirment what I really like.
At the end of each chapter are given examples of each type of threat discussed with the Monsters being the biggest.
I really like the examples as they are not all uber hard need a tank just to hurt them and some have real problems of there own where other may bring the character's a real criss of conscince.
I think this book is generally well written and the little stories for each chapter just help to bring to life the ideas there trying to get across.
My only problem being at some points the book does get a bit long winded. But it is well well the price and the fact that it is hard back Ithink is great as is the artwork fopr the most part. I hope we see a lot more hardback books from White Wolf as they are well worth the price.
