Werewolf: The Forsaken - Blank It

a strong way of rounding out a long-running story with the
characters finally taking down their opponents once and
for all, but using it too often doesn’t do justice to the range
of struggle available in the game. The characters should
be confronted with spiritual, emotional, social and intellectual
struggle as well. Characters should struggle against
violence, at least in the sense of fighting to keep themselves
from brutally murdering their own friends and family
in a fit of Death Rage. Maintaining a territory isn’t just
a matter of tearing up the things the characters dislike. It
should be an active exercise in management of everything
within that land. Father Wolf’s burdens are heavy ones.
That said, Werewolf is a game with a large element of
combat. The very nature of werewolves dictates that their
reaction to many problems will be a violent one. The Primal
Urge that drives them pushes them toward combat far
more than most creatures. Don’t disdain combat as a crude
way to vent steam — handled properly, combat brings out
roleplaying as intense as any other situation might.
CHARACTER CREATION
Character creation might seem like the players’
business rather than yours, but this point is
very much the one at which the chronicle-creation
process starts. Even if you have a distinct
chronicle in mind when you recruit players, the
process of defining the characters who are the
main protagonists in the tale affects the form
that the chronicle takes. After all, Storytelling is
a communal pursuit, and unless the chronicle has
something in it designed to appeal to everyone,
it’s probably doomed to failure.
The characters your players design will tell
you much about the sort of chronicle they’re
interested in. If they create a pack of urban characters,
there’s a good chance they’re not interested
in a chronicle set deep in the wilderness, or
if they are, they want one that emphasizes the
fact that they’re fish out of water. If they create a
set of combat-oriented characters, there’s a good
chance that a game of mystery and introspective
struggle isn’t going to light their collective fire.
The best way to avoid these sorts of conflicts is
to sit down and discuss the sort of chronicle you’ll
all be interested in from the start. Given the territorial
nature of werewolves, working out an idea
of the sort of environment the players desire is of
paramount importance.
• Pack Unity
Just as werewolves are territorial creatures,
they’re also pack creatures. Living and operating
in packs is central to their very nature. All Storytelling
games require that characters cooperate
to some degree, but Werewolf demands more
than that. Characters in a pack need to be able
to trust one another utterly in the heat of battle.
The characters have more than enough on their
collective plates just defending their territories;
internal fights are something they can ill afford.
That’s not to say that disagreements won’t
happen between the characters, but they need
to be able to get on reasonably easily from the
start. One of your jobs during the charactercreation
process is to look for obvious points of
irreconcilable conflict among the characters and
suggest some alternatives. You shouldn’t need to
be heavy handed about this — the players have
chosen to play Werewolf, and packs are a distinct
part of the setting. It’s something to keep an eye
on, though. A pack that’s constantly torn with infighting
is going to disrupt the “band of brothers
against the world” feel of the game.
• Dangling Hooks
Aside from getting an idea of the type of
chronicle that your players are interested in, the
other major objective you have during character
creation and the prelude stage of the process is to
work out what dangling plot hooks are left from
the characters’ lives before the First Change. Elements
of a character’s past coming back to haunt
her are a staple of any serial drama, and Storytelling
games are no exception. They give a strong
sense of history to the character, one that makes
the chronicle that much more immersive.
Many plot elements are going to arise
from the characters’ Merits. These advantages
numerically define people from the characters’
pasts — useful contacts and the like — but the
actual people or events the numbers represent
don’t have to be detailed straight away. Some
details, such as names and general relationship,
can be useful, but there’s really no need to
flesh all the details out now. One or two of the
more important elements, such as the broad
outlines of the character’s family and friends, are
worth developing to give the player something
to work with. The rest are best kept back for
later development, both to allow the player to
add details as she gets the feel of her character
and to leave you some wiggle room in the plot
elements you introduce later.
THE WEREWOLF
Werewolves aren’t human. An obvious statement,
perhaps, but one that has a profound impact on the way you
run a chronicle. Werewolves perceive the environment differently
than humans (and even wolves) do, and their awareness
of the spirit shadow gives them a unique perspective on
the world. To truly immerse your players in the world of the
Forsaken, you have to help them see the world through a
werewolf’s eyes. That means giving thought to the things that
make the Uratha different from us: their senses, their ability
to shapeshift, their spirituality, and their inhuman fury.
The Werewolf
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