System: Werewolf: The Apocalypse
Werewolf was solid last night. Mostly the game ended up being exposition, but with a very clear lead as to what to do next, which I think every game, hell every scene, needs to end with. Otherwise, you’ve got a lot of lost players. We were also told at the end that we’d have some down time, so that makes me pretty happy, as Francois’ goals rarely fit in with the group’s central conflicts.
What rocked:
The interplay between characters was great, as always. I had a particularly good time playing out what it was like shifting to Lupis form and suddenly being able to smell really well, which lead me to a lot of crotch sniffing much to the discomfort of the lone human (er hunter) in the group, especially as his was the crotch that was being sniffed, aggressively, and repetitively.
Thrall of the Wyrm = The alpha shot me. Point blank, in the chest. It just goes to show, when a dog goes mad, you’ve got to put him down. Fun stuff.
Yvette flashes a little leg (and even took off her shirt) to hail a trucker down, whom we then beat up, took his clothes, took his truck and left him on the road. It was cruel and not appropriate for noble Garou, therefore we took a pretty heavy honor and wisdom hit, which I thought was appropriate. The game definitely rewards a certain play style.
The modifications we made did speed things up a bit, but there was still a little confusion. Do you need to hit the difficulty or exceed it? We went with hit, which I think was the right call. I think static defense is great. Also, I liked the removal of 1s taking away. It means are rolls will be better overall, but same for the bad guys so it’s fair in the end, and way less discouraging than eating turd on 1.
Political intrigue. Our characters killed a Shadow Lord kin gone wrong, turned Shadow Dancer kin I guess. This means for some complications with the Shadow Lords. I look forward to seeing how this plays out.
I lost my clothes. A lot. Like 3 times. It was really funny to be naked and then laughed at by the Yvette. Good times. I don’t think I’m going to bind clothes, the humor factor of being naked all the time is just to great.
What could have been improved:
Francois (my character) raged big time and hit the Thrall. It was very cool in concept but added another 20-30 minutes to the game that didn’t really move the story, except to show us what happens when an Ahroun looses it (apparently not much, the worst I did was hit a guy with a safe, ouch, but nothing that could kill him). So, as usual, “time is always against us.”
Looking forward to next session having some down time and meeting up the the big SL!
I actually thought Francois Thralling out now was better than later. Now the players know that a) it can happen and b) that when it does happen, there can be some badness. If it had happened in the middle of a tense combat, I was worries it would create threat paralysis. But yeah, it slowed it down.
Glad you like the Shadow Dancers. It’s my first big foray into creating a new baddie group out of whole cloth, even if it IS tied to the BSDs. All my other baddies have either been established groups or indiciduals.
I agree on the timing story wise. Francois is a loose cannon who barely keeps his rage under wraps (hence Willpower = Rage, but no higher) and was bound to go off sooner or later. I’m just always annoyed when role-playing opportunities are missed because of mechanics. I think it is the old man in me who is saying “I don’t have time for this shit”.
Sounds pretty awesome- missed hanging out with everyone alot- stupid being sick *grumble*
Yeah. No more of that. Get better, m’kay?