| Of all the
games that White Wolf has made, Werewolf is
one of my favourite. I like it for many reasons,
the first being the general idea. In the game
you play a Werewolf. That’s right you
get to be the standard puny human you play
in most systems only now you have the option
of changing into a ten foot snarling beast.
Secondly, I like the way the way Werewolf
deals with the World of Darkness setting.
For those of you who have never encountered
the World of Darkness setting before I’ll
explain a little about it. It’s a world
much like our own but everything’s that
little bit worse... that little bit darker.
The other major difference lies with the supernatural,
Werewolves, Vampires, Wraiths, etc. all exist.
Depending which game you decide to play will
then decide which slant you’re given
on this setting. The fact that the setting
is so similar to our own is one of the main
reasons White Wolf’s games are so easy
to get into, the fact that there brilliantly
written probably has something to do with
it as well.
The first chapter in the Werewolf book is
about the World of Darkness. It tells you
about Werewolf society and how it works. You
will learn that the Werewolves are locked
in a desperate fight to try and hold back
the darkness, which is creeping over their
world. This darkness is made up of many things
but they all usually boil down to the Wyrm.
This has many different meanings, but is basically
the bad in the world; it’s the corruption,
the pain, the suffering… the evil. The
main Wyrm driven enemy that the Werewolves
will encounter are the Black Spiral Dancers.
This is a tribe of Werewolves gone bad and
whenever the Garou (good werewolves) encounter
them a fight is usually on the cards.
Chapter two is the part where you get to
learn more about Werewolves. It gives you
a breakdown of the 3 breed types, Homid (human),
Metis (from Werewolf interbreeding) and Lupus
(wolf). It then tells you about the different
(moon) auspices that you can pick from. The
moon you were born under and will affect everything
from your personality traits to your pack
duties. There are five to choose form ranging
from “the trickster” to “the
warrior”. This chapter is good as it
helps to show you what each tribe wants and
it shows you what they think of the other
groups.
Chapter three is about character generation.
The system used is very similar to the one
White Wolf uses in all it’s games and
is based on allocating points to particular
areas to decide what your good at. You will
have to pick your breed from the three I mentioned
earlier and I wouldn’t recommend a first
time character taking a Metis Werewolf. They
all have to take a disfigurement of some sort
due to the interbreeding (that’ll teach
them), all of which are a bit extreme. You
will then have to pick your Auspice. The last
thing you have to choose is your tribe. Overall
your character will be working as part of
a pack, but each choice you make is important,
as it will decide how your character thinks
and where their true loyalties lie.
Chapter four is where the Gifts and Rites
are explained. Gifts are powers that Werewolves
can use to perform various special abilities.
This includes things like “Jam Technology”
which allows a player to stop a simple device
from working, or “Hare’s Leap”
which allows a player to leap further (not
just a clever name). The Gifts you may choose
from will vary depending on your breed, auspice
and tribe.
The best way to describe Rites is long-winded
spells. Now, I’m sure some people really
like using Rites but I can safely say they
don’t usually crop up in my games. I
tend to find them a bit long winded and although
they can benefit your game, I usually just
let the players work round them rather than
through them.
Chapter five is where you’ll learn
the rules. I won’t go into these very
much as I think it will be sufficient to say
that White Wolf have kept up their usual high
standard and the system is simple enough for
you to pick up in a few minutes. You will
only need D10’s and tests are made using
your attributes on there own or combined with
relevant skills to decide how many dice you
roll, each dice that comes up with a result
equal to or higher than the difficulty number
set by the GM is a success and the more successes
the better.
Chapter six is called systems and drama.
It tells you how your character can increase
or decrease their standing in Garou society.
Renown is the main way for a Werewolf to achieve
a higher status and is effectively a measure
of how famous and well respected a Werewolf
is. This chapter also gives you the more advanced
game mechanics such as changing form and combat.
It’s all still pretty simple though
and it leads you through without any major
problems. There is also a really good, long,
example of play on the end of this chapter,
which helps to show you the system in action.
This is very useful and if you’ve never
roleplayed before you may want to go through
this with your group so you can all get a
feel for things.
Chapter seven is about the Umbra. The Umbra
is the Werewolf name for the spirit world.
This is a place that only a few human shamans
and mystics have ever glimpsed, and even then
they never truly understand it. The best way
to describe the Umbra is as another dimension
that exists alongside our world and anything
that has a strong spirit in the real world
will be represented in the Umbra. A Werewolf
has the power to “step sideways”
into this other dimension, where they can
travel to other places in the real world.
The idea can be a little hard to get your
head round to begin with but after a while
you’ll begin to understand how things
work.
Chapter eight is about storytelling. This
is the GM’s chapter and helps give the
person running the game a helping hand. It
tells them how to design and develop a story
that the players will really want to play
and it helps the GM understand how the different
aspects of a game can be used to move a story
along. It also gives you some information
on running chronicles, which are connected
adventures.
The final chapter is about the bad guys of
the game. There is information on the Werewolves
main enemy, the Black Spiral Dancers and it
gives you a few of their background and gifts.
Fomori are another of the Werewolves enemies.
They are humans who have been warped by the
Wyrm to the point where they have gained powers
and become twisted beyond recognition. The
other more familiar Werewolf enemies are also
handled in this section, with information
on Vampires, Mages, Wraiths and Faeries.
The Appendix at the back of the book contains
something veterans of the game will be interested
in, the Stargazers. The Stargazers used to
be one of tribes you could choose to come
from during character generation but they
have now been removed for the purpose of storyline.
At first this seemed like a bit of a kick
in the teeth for me as I have been using my
Stargazer in our games for a while now and
it’s one of my favourite characters.
But, fear not my fellow tribe chum’s
as all is not lost. You can choose to stay
with your pack and not wonder off with the
rest of your tribe if you want.
Overall this is a great game for people who
are just starting out or for roleplay veterans
of old. It is well written and has a good
simple system, which gets you started nice
and quick. The setting is what I feel keeps
people coming back to this game over and over
again though. It’s wide enough to allow
you to run anything from a murder mystery
to an all out war and it’s also been
designed to give the GM a world they can explore
with their players on many different levels.
This would be a good first time buy and if
you’ve been around for a while and you
still don’t own it I’d be interested
to know why?
The Apocalypse may be upon us and your only
chance could very well be the animal within.
Reviewed By Jon Simpson |
