Werewolf: The Forsaken - Blank It

Urshul and Urhan form? Picture your character as clearly
as you can, as it helps you express his image and personality
when it comes time to roleplay. The more realistic and
interesting other people find your character, the more
everyone enjoys the game.
THE PRELUDE
You don’t have an appointment, but you barge right into
your boss’ office. You’ve got a file folder in one hand, trailing
printouts, receipts and curling fax papers. You slam it down on his
desk triumphantly, and your boss gapes in shock at the intrusion.
You’ve figured it out, you tell him. The enormous loss in
third-quarter profits last year, the skyrocketing overhead, the
jacked-up insurance premiums the company’s been subjected
to… it’s all a smokescreen. It’s all on paper and in the computer,
but the numbers in the company records don’t match up with the
bank’s records or with what the company reported to the IRS.
Looking back at all the pay-cuts the company’s had to make and
the loss of medical benefits, and matching it against the files and
records in the folder, you’ve figured out that the company isn’t
in as dire straits as the SEC seems to think. No, someone at the
company’s been embezzling. You love the company and you’re
furious at how it’s been mistreated, so you offer to personally
lead the investigation to root out the criminal.
“That won’t be necessary,” your boss says. “You’ve
already found him.”
What do you do?
The prelude in a Storytelling game is similar to Step
Eight in the character-creation process. You think about
quirks and idiosyncrasies in your character’s behavior, as
well as the events in his life that might have determined
who he is. You think about how he acts as much as you
do about who he is. Now you and the Storyteller go a step
further, describing formative scenes in your character’s
early life and discussing how he reacts to them.
Going through the prelude isn’t mandatory, and
experienced players and Storytellers might not find it
entirely necessary, but it does serve a beneficial purpose.
It provides some crucial opportunities that help fully immerse
players and Storytellers in the shared setting they’re
about to create and helps the player get comfortable in the
role he’s chosen. It lets him try out the quirks he’s come
up with and get into the mindset of a seemingly human
creature who can change shape and sojourn in the spirit
world. The prelude also shows the Storyteller how the
player is going to play the character he’s created. If a player
has given his character a high Intelligence, for example,
the prelude reveals whether that character is a rational,
deliberate, careful thinker or a hothead who’s only later
able to piece together information coherently. That sort of
characterization can make a world of difference in crucial
moments during your story, so it’s very important to have
a sense of it before play begins.
Beyond its ordinary purpose, a prelude offers three
significant opportunities. The first is the opportunity to
tinker with the character sheet, rearrange dots and recal-
culate derived traits. It might be that in the course of the
prelude you find that you tend to play your character as a
high-strung reactionary, rather than as the sedate intellectual
that the dispersal of Mental Attribute dots first
implies. If you’re more comfortable playing that way, the
Storyteller will probably allow you to take a dot away from
your character’s Composure and add it to his Wits instead.
It’s also a good idea to have the Storyteller check your
math on your character’s derived traits (such as Willpower,
Initiative, Speed and Defense), just to make sure that any
changes are accounted for accurately.
Another important opportunity the prelude presents
is delivering background information necessary to the
story. Such information includes what year the story is set
in, where it takes place, and what’s been happening in the
local territories that have led up to current events. Delivering
such information in a prelude is common in one-session
stories or stories that continue the lives of characters
from a previous chronicle. It’s also advisable to summarize
important information for new characters, such as who the
experienced werewolves are, where the local loci to the
spirit world are, and how pervasive the human element is.
It isn’t necessary to provide this preliminary information in
the prelude, however. The first story or arc of stories in the
chronicle could just as easily revolve around the characters’
discovering this information for themselves. Werewolf
being a horror game, a certain amount of mystery, paranoia
and terrible revelation is perfectly acceptable.
The third significant opportunity a prelude provides
focuses on the Storyteller. It’s a chance for him to show
off his advanced Storytelling capabilities. The prelude is
an excellent place to plant symbols or lay out motifs that
become increasingly prominent as the chronicle progresses.
A story that plays up a sense of confinement to make
a point about werewolves being separated from the spirit
world might use stop-and-go traffic, velvet-roped queues or
literal imprisonment in the prelude to suggest the point.
The Storyteller could also engage in foreshadowing. If a
recurring antagonist is a sinister Storm Lord, the prelude
might feature the rumbling of faraway thunder, or might
be set against a backdrop of dreary skies or rain-slicked
streets. If he wants to be really tricky, the Storyteller can
reflect the core thrust of his entire plot in microcosm
through one of the characters’ preludes. Perhaps the jealousy
and mistrust a character experiences in a lovers’ spat
directly reflects the hidden feelings between two rival pack
alphas who have been at each other’s throats since they
secretly broke the Oath and conceived a Ghost Child.
Perhaps the characters learn a valuable lesson during their
initiation that they need to remember at the chronicle’s
end as they desperately try to put down a rogue idigam
that’s been plaguing them all along. This is not to say
that every Storyteller uses the mise-en-scène of his prelude
to give away the ending of his chronicle, but the wise
player minds the experiences his character has during his
prelude, just in case.
Character Creation
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