Werewolf: The Forsaken - Blank It

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Chapter IV: Storytelling and Antagonists
THE POWER OF HIDING OURSELVES FROM ONE ANOTHER IS MERCIFULLY GIVEN, FOR MEN ARE WILD
BEAST S, AND WOULD DEVOUR ONE ANOTHER BUT FOR THIS PROTECTION.
—HENRY WARD BEECHER, “PROVERBS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT”
This chapter assumes you’ve read and digested the
information presented in the Storytelling chapter of the World
of Darkness Rulebook. That chapter teaches the basics of
Storytelling and defines some of the central terms we’ll be using
here: chronicle, story, flashback and the like. This chapter
focuses on more advanced Storytelling skills and the specific
things you need to bear in mind while running a Werewolf:
The Forsaken chronicle.
Many people say life is a struggle or they’re fighting to
survive. For most of them, it simply isn’t true. They have a
roof over their heads, an income and enough food to keep
their families healthy. For a pack of werewolves, though, it
should be true. For the Uratha, life is struggle, and they do
have to fight to survive. They fight to protect their families,
friends and, most importantly, their territory from threats
ranging from the Pure Tribes to the Spirit-Claimed. They also
struggle against themselves, so that they can prevent themselves
from emerging from a nightmarish blackout steeped
in the blood of their loved ones. And they fight to make the
fringes of the spirit world that touch their territories a better
place. Your job, as the Storyteller, is to determine what conflicts
the characters face in the course of the chronicle, while
making the things that the characters are fighting to defend
as real as possible. You must also show how one pack’s struggle
is part of a larger effort by all of the Forsaken.
WORLD OF THE FORSAKEN
In the classic werewolf stories, there’s an element of
internal horror built into the story. The protagonist, or one of
his friends, finds himself slowly becoming an animalistic creature
that retains some of its human sentience while becoming
subject to powerful predatory urges. The story often centers
on his or her struggle against that transformation, and
the tragic outcome of the battle. A Werewolf: The Forsaken
game takes that moment and builds upon it until you have a
complete story about what it means to become such a creature.
For the Uratha, there is no escaping the transformation:
The change is inevitable when it comes. The horror grows
from adapting to this life and the knowledge that comes with
it. Werewolves are aware of the Shadow and how it feeds on
actions in the physical world. They also find their horizons
suddenly narrowed. Travel, ambition, relationships all change
or end. The pack usually has a territory to maintain, and its
members are hard pressed to do that, let alone pursue wider
ambitions. Your responsibility is to bring that home ground
to life and make its boundaries seem real. For the threats to
be credible, for them to chill and anger both the characters
and the players, the places and people under threat have to
be vivid and live in the players’ imaginations.
One of the simplest ways to find inspiration for a Werewolf
chronicle is to read or watch any of the source material
listed on p. 17, and think about it from the perspective
of the werewolves. Doing so takes an imaginative leap as
the majority of stories are told from the perspective of the
human victims of the werewolves. If you keep in mind the
setting details outlined in this book, however, it’s surprisingly
easy to start seeing a whole different plot at work.
It’s usually something along the lines of arrogant humans
invading the werewolves’ territory, and the locals fighting
back, but it’s a good starting place for any chronicle.
THE HUNT
The heart of Werewolf is the hunt. The hunt means
something to us as humans — it’s a symbol of our relationship
with nature, as we act as predators and fear being
prey. This engages the players immediately, as they can
roleplay hunters greater than any human with a gun and
enjoy the vicarious thrill of being hunted by the Forsaken’s
many foes. The hunt also drives the game, motivating
the players to take the initiative and act. Even if their
characters are the prey, they have to get in motion and
stay in motion, lest they fall to their pursuers. The hunt is
at the core of the constant struggle against intrusions from
the Shadow, and it’s what makes the Forsaken’s war with
the Pure Tribes a devilishly dangerous game of stalking
and ambushes rather than a simple bloody free-for-all.
Though not every story you tell will be a “hunt” story,
it’s good to keep the hunt in mind throughout the chronicle.
A struggle against a dangerous foe can be all the more exciting
if the players can figure out a way to tip the odds so that
they’re the ones doing the hunting, and their enemy is the
one on the run. The hunt can also retain its thematic power
even in other venues. A romantic subplot is more interesting
if the player’s intended is subconsciously aware that he’s her
prey, and an edge of instinctive fear colors their courtship. A
truce negotiation with vampires becomes more tense as each
side looks the other over, trying to determine who would be
stalking whom if it breaks. Like any theme, mood, plot or
description, of course, you shouldn’t overdo it. If your players
begin each session by asking one another “So what are we
hunting, or who will be hunting us, tonight?”, the gimmick
has worn thin for a while. But if handled well, the hunt as a
theme reinforces to the players that they aren’t playing ordinary
people who just happen to have the power to shapeshift
into animals, but predatory beasts in human skin. They’ll
truly believe their characters are werewolves.
STRUGGLE VERSUS COMBAT
Struggle and violent conflict aren’t the same thing,
but a Storyteller can very easily slip into making them so.
When you’re pressed for time and need a plot for the next
couple of sessions, it’s all too easy to just stack up a series
of foes for the characters to take apart. Such a plot makes