The Gang’s All Here

Open Development, Werewolf: The Forsaken

Still redlining. Much of the week got eaten by Apocalypse work, but things keep going. Pack creation won 39–19! Let’s see what the future holds

Pack creation happens after character creation. It’s not mandatory, but it’s something that I’m very happy with, and that I really think people will get a kick out of.

Characters first create their werewolves. This is, after all, Werewolf. But that’s just the start. Once each player’s done, everyone takes a turn introducing themselves to the others in character, getting a feel for the character’s voice. Once that’s done, it’s time to connect the werewolves.

Each player says what her character thinks of one of her packmates. If I’m playing Julia, an Iron Master Irraka, I might make a connection with Caleb, the Storm Lord Rahu.

Caleb’ always going on about how we need to be better, like he’s the team coach and

we’re never going to win a game how we’re playing. It pisses Julia off, because

she’s doing her best already, damnit.

Caleb’s player gets to come back and embellish the connection, so you end up with how both characters feel about one another:

Caleb’s focused on getting Julia to improve because he trusts her more than the rest

of the pack. He likes and respects her, and wants to nurture her talent – but after

boot camp he thinks being a drill sergeant is the best way to do that.

Every player gets to start a relationship. The group may want to take notes, or use mind-mapping software like Scapple or MindMeister, to record these relationships. They help the pack feel like they’ve had a life before play starts; everyone knows one another. Some of the relationships can be antagonistic, but the majority should be positive.

After that, move on to supporting Wolf-Blooded. These aren’t created the same as a Wolf-Blooded character using the full tells as detailed previously. Supporting Wolf-Blooded use a simplified set of traits. Each player makes one, and establishes their connections to one of the Uratha, just as happened between the werewolf packmates.

Next, supporting human characters. They don’t really know that they’re in a pack per se, but do have a role to play as friends, family, coworkers, and other people that fall under the pack’s penumbra. These characters have really simple traits, and everyone creates between one and three of them. They don’t have a full tie to the pack like the Wolf-Blooded do, but each has a defined role.

Finally, the pack’s totem. It’s got a more in-depth creation process, including a name and a set of traits. It hunts with the pack in the Shadow, and provides benefits for both supporting characters and for Uratha on the Siskur-Dah.

This system is optional – if you want to play through the story of a group of werewolves who come together, hunt a totem, carve out territory and find their own packmates, that’s absolutely something that the book supports. But rather than forcing the start of a story to focus on an “origin story”, we’re giving a system to start with an established pack with a place in the world.

We’re also providing an in-character method of pack creation. This method starts with players having a concept for their character, and moving through The Funeral – a framing story that helps them define both character and pack during play, using set events and leading questions to bring out aspects of the character. The Funeral requires a bit more willingness from players to let the play happen as it does, but the results are well worth it.

We may provide other framing scenarios than The Funeral, either later in the line or on the blog. I’m still going call all of them “The Funeral”, as an overarching term for the whole process. You can’t stop me. It’s a nelogism now.

The supporting Wolf-Blooded and human characters also provide an option for troupe play, as seen in games like Ars Magica. Nobody really “owns” the supporting characters, but if one or more of the werewolves are out of the scene, their players can pick up on any packmates who could help out. It helps get the flavour of a pack in play.

Unfortunately, we don’t have the room to cover spirits and wolves as packmates outside of a sidebar in the Idigam Chronicle itself; we’re focusing on humans and Wolf-Blooded as the most likely to be protagonists or supporting characters. If possible, we’re going to get into more detail in future releases – and possibly on the blog after the book’s released.

While not a normal pack recruitment line, Curiosity’s Play With Us showcases the kind of temptation that can bring someone into a pack, and that then convinces them not to leave. Also, it’s a fantastic song that more people should know. Finally, would you like Rites or Prey?