http://www.dmperez.com/2010/02/04/why-i-love-thee-vampire-the-masquerade/
Long ago, I honestly couldn’t tell you if this was before or after I graduated from HS or not. I think before. Anyway, I was introduced to Werewolf: the Apocalypse and Vampire: the Masquerade on a break from work. For some reason I think the fellow who showed me these books said he had been introduced at a summer camp. Maybe one with religious overtones. I could be completely wrong about that.
This must have been between 1990 and 1992. I was 18 or 19 at the time. And, many of the things Mr. Perez says were true of me, too. However, I saw those books and then didn’t have a lot of contact with them again for, oooh… two years or so. Maybe three. I never got a chance to play either for a while. In that time I stumbled upon Mage: the Ascension. I really don’t know when I got my first W:tA rule book. I know it was second edition. I still have it. It’s still one of my favorite RPGs of all time.
Over the next couple of years I immersed myself in Werewolf and to a lesser extent Mage. I only rarely got a chance to run, and when I did, I ran one or two Werewolf sessions. Mages and Vampires would crop up now and again as NPCs mostly, but it was an intensely “spiritually seeking” time for me. To this day, most of my WoD games of any stripe end up taking me back to Philly some how. Showcase Comics (now Atomic City Comics) on South Street is where I got the vast majority of my collection.
But I digress; the spiritualism of Werewolf appealed to me. I wanted it to be true. I knew it wasn’t, but I wanted it so bad that I would see it everywhere, everything would inspire story ideas. Everywhere I went I would see the Wyld, Wyrm, and Weaver. It was actually a great deal of fun. Even if I wasn’t playing or running as much as I would have liked it was Werewolf that kept me in the hobby. It was Werewolf that I chose over comic books when I realized I was spending way, WAY, too much at Showcase. It’s the Werewolf books that I still have after near a half dozen moves, a college degree, and all the life in between. I’ve trimmed the collection, but there are still gaps that I would love to fill some day.
The new Werewolf is cool. The new Vampire is cool (actually, I prefer the new Vampire to the old). But, White Wolf captured lightning in a bottle back there in the early 1990s and nothing has come close for me since. I would say it is one of the four most important RPGs I’ve ever encountered in my nearly 30 years of gaming.
And, at the risk of starting a flame war, or being accused of hubris, or possibly both:
I see a lot of people talk smack in various forms about Werewolf, the line, and it’s method of play.
Look, I don’t say this, ever, but I am saying it now. “You. Are. Playing it. Wrong.” Sorry.
(cue hubris) If we ever meet, I’ll run a game for you. I’ll show you the way as best I can. Whether you drink my Kool-Aid is really still up to you.
Awesome that you did your own retrospective on Werewolf! I linked it over from my Vampire post (in the comments).
Now, I never played Werewolf, so tell me about the right way to play it, please.
heh, heh.
Playing any game right is when you and your group have fun.
That said, I’ve never had anything but fun with Werewolf (either of them, though, I have significantly less experience with Forsaken). So I must be doing something, “right.”
I’ve encountered people who don’t appreciate the role of the trickster.
I’ve encountered groups that saw the game as nothing more than combat.
I’ve encountered people who actually believed that Vampire was a more political game. I find this baffling.
Most werewolves have never heard of Pentex. The idea that all these companies could be owned by one shadowy, Wyrm-tainted, conspiracy is “crazy.”
One can not ignore the Triat. Werewolves versus the Wyrm is boring. Werewolves versus the Wyld… Now that’s interesting.
And, my tongue was mostly in my cheek when I said that about, “you’re doing it wrong,” but, I love that game to death. I think I’m really good at running it. So, yeah, maybe folks aren’t doing it “wrong” per say, but I think I can do it “better.”
:D
Ok, but really, tell me about the right way to play Werewolf. By that I mean the themes I should be focusing during play, what to avoid, what do to maximize what the game gives you, etc.
Ah. Themes. That’s another story.
First decision is to embrace the game’s title. You simply can not ignore the apocalypse. You have to decide, before anything else, what the end of the world means to your chronicle and your PCs.
Will the end of everything bring hope and redemption to the monsters that the Garou have become over the eons (let us not forget these furry heroes of the end times are genocidal maniacs, right?) or will you go hopeless and fallen warriors of Ragnarok?
I tend to prefer the former, but it’s good to have a PC or NPC voice for the latter.
Second. Duality. Spirit world and this world. Human and wolf. What it means to be of one, or one or the other. This is a game where you can play a character who was born a wolf, after all. Once again, to gloss over or ignore, it is to be not playing Werewolf: the Apocalypse.
Loss. Becoming a werewolf pretty much destroys one’s old life. How does one cope with that loss?
Yeah… That’s off the top of my head, but:
1) Is the Apocalypse “The End” or “A New Beginning?”
2) Duality.
3) Loss.
Ooo! The Pack. Party cohesion and pecking order are part of the setting in a way I can think of no other setting or system matches. I’ve seen some very intense character interactions over the Alpha spot in a pack.
So, 4) The Pack.
Ok, awesome. Thanks for that.