8 posts tagged “werewolf”

After five months away from the table, I finally made it back to my group's Werewolf game. Fortunately, the internet can provide even RPG characters with an explanation for long-term uninvolvement in daily affairs. But! Back to the action. Oddly enough, the session only covered one evening's in-game action-- practically real-time. That sounds brief compared to the days we usually cover, but our gamemaster still packed in the action. Lessons from this week's game:

1. Spirits have their price, and don't care who pays it. Like NSO dames at a WWII hall, they'll dance with anybody.
2. Spirits that hit your Essence are scarier than spirits who just hit your Health.
3. If you fail your Stealth check, you may as well make a racket and draw attention away from more successful packmates.

Dog Soldiers

The old Hollywood Blockbuster in Tenleytown is going out of business, so they've decided to sell off all their remaining inventory. This is the sort of windfall that a collector lives for--obscure, weird little films for five bucks each. Granted, in these days of Ebay and Craig's List it shouldn't be too hard to find a DVD or ripped copy of the most out-of-the-way film you can name, but there's a great satisfaction to finding cult films on a shelf in a store where civilians can walk right by them.

The most desirable cult films were already gone, of course. The Rocky Horror Picture Show, anything with Bruce Campbell in it--these were snapped up by more aggressive fans in the early days of the sale. Still, I managed to score a copy of John Carpenter's The Fog, and Larry Fessenden's Habit. Ah, but I've seen those before; the big finds for me were the films I'd been wanting to see yet missed along the way. I picked up all three Ginger Snaps films (original, sequel, and prequel) and Dog Soldiers. Clearly, this is going to be a werewolf halloween for me.

Dog Soldiers is a "shot in the woods" movie in the vein of Evil Dead, The Blair Witch Project, and Versus. By shooting a small cast in the middle of a Scottish forest, the producers get to spend more money on creature effects, pyrotechnics,  and gore. In this case, the creatures are werewolves, the pyrotechnics are an assortment of British arms and jeeps, and the gore is a doomed squad of soldiers on a disastrous training exercise. It's tempting to say that what the film lacks in technical merit it makes up for with strong performances from an endearing cast of victims; but really, writer/director Neil Marshall plays his cinematographic cards just right. When the soldiers beat a hasty retreat from their first blind encounter with the enemy, the cheap-o woods turn into a menacing, labyrinthine screen for their pursuers. After the soldiers hole up in the obligatory cabin-in-the-woods, the arms that come groping through the cracks demonstrate just how shoddy their fortress is (one kitchen window gets boarded up and reboarded at least three times). And while the werewolves are a little overtall and overlean, Marshall shows just enough of them to convey their speed and lethality.

Kevin McKidd plays the ostensible lead in this film, and does well as the resourceful private passed over for acceptance to the Special Forces, but Sean Pertwee (sounding more like his father Jon every year) gets the choicest role as the auld sergeant fighting a losing battle. The dialogue is heavily salted with football (soccer) references, military jargon, and British profanity, producing a pleasantly foreign hum in American ears that is undoubtedly part of the film's appeal.

Good visuals, visceral shots, charming lads-- I give Dog Soldiers five tags.

Next up: Ginger Snaps, and what do werewolf movies have against dogs?

Little design snag: I've gotten very good at determining which of the Talbot's actions generate Suspicion among NPCs (answer: almost all of them). But what actions build up Sympathy? Getting NPCs to do something for the Talbot? Doing something nice for the NPCs? It has to be something a little more involved than "not biting." Something a little more concrete than "impress the Herd." There's got to be a positive reinforcement sort of option out there.

Lessee... Suspicion measures an NPC's belief that the Talbot is up to no good (whether or not they realize he's a werewolf). NPCs with high Suspicion will get in the Talbot's face and limit his available courses of action. Meanwhile, Sympathy measure's an NPC's willingness to aid the Talbot. NPCs with high Sympathy will comply with Talbot-originated solutions to conflicts. Generating Suspicion is easy-- the Talbot just has to show up and act weird. Generating Sympathy is harder-- the Talbot has to let the NPC have their say/way. But is that too passive? Isn't there a way for the Talbot to offer solutions? The idea is that resorting to wolfy Instinct is the easy way out, but how to establish the tough option?

While I'd like to have a werewolf game that encompasses many different kinds of lycanthropy (inherited, infected, inflicted), it's probably simpler for the creation process if I assert that the curse works one particular way, if only so I can move ahead with designing mechanics around it. I'll aim for a solid framework, but keep in mind the potential for variatons later.

So, how does this werewolf thing work?

• There is a precursor wolf, a carrier. This wolf is an example of what happens when the Talbot loses all control and goes four-footed forever.
• The precursor wolf (patient zero? alpha?) senses the Talbot's profound frustration, homes in on him, and applies the teeth.
• After the trauma of the precursor wolf's attack, the Talbot begins to realize that he can do things differently. He has flashes of hyperawareness, superior reflexes, fantastic health... but also an increasingly insistent but inarticulate urge to solve things through fight or flight.
• Ignoring the urges leaves the Talbot unprepared for the inevitable transformations. Indulging the urges is dangerous, usually to other people. It's mostly "damned if you do, damned if you don't," but there's different rates of descent (and different depths).
• Can the Talbot completely remove the curse, or is this a one-way ticket? I think leaving the option open makes the Talbot's choice to indulge the wolf more significant. To put it another way, there's no single cure, but there are many treatments.
• Elements of treatment include: confronting the precursor wolf (but not necessarily killing it), acquiring some sort of panacea (dramatically complicated to concoct), refraining from bloodshed for a specified period (cold turkey method), correcting some terrible event (the karmic method), transferrence (some sympathetic friend finds a way to experience the curse on the Talbot's behalf), and forcible treatment (taking the wolf out of the Talbot). No single treatment will cure the whole condition, but failing on one treatment doesn't automatically lead to 3F.
• The Talbot cannot pass the curse along while in this state of flux; true virulence only comes after falling to 3F status. However, the Talbot can mess up an NPC's life to the point that the NPC becomes a magnet for the precursor wolf, so there's still a chance for some wolf-on-wolf competition if the players are interested.
• After a relatively short period of time, the Talbot will either refute the curse, achieve balance with it, or go four-footed forever. Once that outcome has been determined, the game is effectively finished, because the Talbot will either have no outstanding conflicts to resolve, or no resources to solve outstanding conflicts.

I think that's a pretty solid outline. Now, how to put numbers to it, and how to establish the Herd/Pack dynamic?

A comment on the previous post has me thinking about prime numbers.

Let's suppose that we have a game in which there's a finite number of points to shuffle around between four slots. I need to be able to allocate points in such a way that the values are never all equal, which means I want an odd number of points. Further, I want a range of values that will allow me to set the "scale" of the game, without greatly changing the way the rules work. So, I need some bigger and smaller numbers that yet act similarly.

It so happens that the primes 19, 23, and 31 are in a nice little zone together (skipping 29, which is a shame, because it's closest to the lunar cycle, but oh well). All of them when divided by 4 have a remainder of 3, which is a nice similarity. The difference between 23 and 31 is twice the difference between 19 and 23, which has the ring of a logical progression.

So, for my game with four slots (say, Sympathy, Suspicion, Instinct, and Intellect), the most balanced allocations I can get are:

19 point game--5/5/5/4

23 point game--6/6/6/5

31 point game--8/8/8/7

...which means three values balance, and one value "loses." Or wins, if opposed equal values cancel each other out. I'm expecting the final values usually will be very imbalanced, with one clearly standing out above the rest. This 3-over-1 balance most likely will represent the "best possible outcome" for certain values.

The bigger question is what to do with these points, now that I have an idea of the desired size of the pool...

I don't know if I'd say I'm on a roll with this werewolf game thing, but I'm certainly on a tear. In this post, a little thinking about the subtext or implied values of the game as reinforced by the rules:

• Power fantasies are fun, but only for the person with the power.
• You have to make personal and moral choices at some point, or they will be made for you.
• Moral choices have consequences beyond the personal level.
• With the right friends, even a cursed existence as a half-feral lycanthrope can be tolerable.

How will the game suggest all this?

• The werewolf is super badass when it's doing it's thing. However, its thing is pretty dangerous for everybody who isn't the werewolf.
• The Talbot is working under a deadline. Over the course of the game, instinct will build up until the wolf aspect is in complete control. Can't hold back the tide-- but the Talbot can learn to surf.
• The Talbot's actions are measured by their affect on other people.
• People can be helpful, if the Talbot gives them a reason to try. People can also load up on silver bullets.

It occurs to me that while I'm writing this with werewolves in mind, it could be easy to adapt the final rules to any sort of transformative monster's idiom. The vampire, the science experiment gone wrong, the possessed person... any of those films in which the protagonist has a chance to say, "My new track time is great, but I feel really bad about what happened to that deputy."

Examples of the choices a Talbot gets to make:

• Conceal: Try to hide status from people or reign in the wolf. Generates sympathy and internal tension.
• Reveal: Try to involve people in the problem or use the wolf's powers. Generates suspicion but gets things done.
• Fight: Take somebody down, or generate property damage.
• Flight: Escape a situation or avoid danger.

Examples of choices the Herd/Pack get to make:

• Expand: Add an NPC or a location to the story.
• Contract: Provide incentive for the Talbot (as the werewolf) to destroy an NPC or a location.
• Cut: Declare the end of a scene.
• Clock: Move time along (represented by phases of the moon?).

You'll notice there's a tendency towards duality in these actions. The game I'm picturing will be about negotiating conflicting impulses, but there should still be room to negotiate a middle ground.

Something else I've thought about is the game's opening phase. This part is basically character creation and campaign overview combined. I'd like to see the Talbot and the Herd/Pack come up with a sort of summary paragraph, like a trailer for the movie they're about to create. It would fit a pattern like:

"John Talbot has just had the worst day of his life. He's lost his lottery ticket, his car has been reposessed, and he's just been fired for flirting with a co-worker. To top it all off, on the way home from work last night, he was bitten by a frickin' werewolf."

The intro establishes the character, two to four major conflicts that need to be resolved, and the fact of the curse. The players can then start adding in NPCs (the boss, the co-worker, the repo man, the lottery agent), locations (home, the office, the impound lot), and goals (get the money, girl, revenge). Depending on the players, this intro is also where the mood of the session is set: tragedy? Farce? Bildungsroman? Hopefully, the rules will be flexible enough for some variety in the interpretation...

Wow, it's been a while since I've posted. Caught up in camping and class work and other things, don't you know.

This post will be something of an open brainstorming. GkACzns will recognize some of the thoughts from earlier conversations-- hopefully, my other gamer friends will also have some constructive criticism to offer.

Genesis of the idea: I currently play in a nWoD Werewolf: the Forsaken campaign run by a good storyteller. Actually, this is the second such campaign of his I've played in. It's pretty fun. And yet, when I think about the classic werewolf stories and movies, I can't help but feel that White Wolf missed an opportunity to create a game that really incorporates those tropes. In most of White Wolf's game, the werewolf's status is taken for granted-- it's as assumed part of the character. In movies like An American Werewolf in London and Ginger Snaps, the dramatic tension is in the transition. I want a game that focuses on that awkward, terrible process. More specifically...

Thesis: I want a role-playing game that can be played by 2-6 people with minimum set-up and achieves resolution in 2-4 hours (depending on scope, involvement, and complications). The story will focus on the dramatic events surrounding a character's (or characters') transformation from normal human to monstrous beast. The game's mechanics will reinforce the story by rewarding or punishing the characters' choices: exploit new-found powers at the cost of alienation, or resist the change at the cost of personal safety/comfort.

Antithesis: One of the problems with really dramatic werewolf stories is that they tend to be about one werewolf dealing with his problem, against a "control group" of normal friends (or victims, or already rabid bad-wolves). But this is a group game-- who wants to sit on the sidelines? And what about spreading the curse (if it's that sort)?

Synthesis: A possible solution I've thought about is to make this werewolf game sort of the opposite of the usual RPG. Instead of one DM/Storyteller and several PCs, this werewolf game could have one "PC" (the werewolf) and several DMs (the other players). The other players, I'll call them the Herd or Pack (depending on what mood they're in) act as a sort of empowered Greek chorus. They play all the NPCs, they establish the scenes and introduce the complications-- basically, they get to make that werewolf squirm throughout the session. And then, next week, it's somebody else's turn.

Draft Rules: It's a little hard to settle on mechanics when the basic principles of the game are still undecided, but in an effort to find concrete points to discuss, I've generated the following ideas for game rules:

• The Talbot: The "tragic hero" of the game, named for the classic Lon Chaney, Jr. character. This is the central werewolf character. Everything happens to him or her.
• The Herd/The Pack: The other players in the game. When playing the NPCs who interact with the Talbot, they're the Herd (passive). When playing the forces that manipulate the world and influence the Talbot, they're the Pack (aggressive).
• Stats: We only have to keep track of what's important to the resolution of the game. We know that when the werewolf is "on," it will kick the ass of almost everything in its path-- so measuring combat value is of low importance. What the Talbot will need to measure is more like: Tracks/Profile (What evidence leads to me? Who knows my secret?), Sympathy (Who will help me? Who will run screaming?), Self-Control/Instinct (How much say do I have over the wolf's actions?), and maybe Territory (What places are safe for me? Dangerous for others?). The Herd/Pack will need to measure: NPC Survivability (Who's safe from predation? Who's next on the menu?), Lunar Tide (How long before the next transformation? How long before changes are permanent?), Silver Bullets (How much can we stop/harm/hurt the Talbot?), and possibly Narrative Authority (who can introduce what elements, and how often?).
• The Hunter: An archetypical NPC the Herd might want to introduce in some games. Dedicated to undoing the Talbot.
• The Alpha: Another archetypical NPC, this is the werewolf who infected the Talbot. Might not always be relevant.
• Cured: One possible outcome for the game, in which the Talbot gets to return to a "normal" life.
• Balanced: A possible outcome for the game, in which the Talbot successfully balances the human and the bestial.
• 3F: Four-footed forever, a possible outcome for the game in which the Talbot can't become human again.

On a side note, I've been toying with the idea of using playing cards instead of dice for this game. Not as a randomizing element, but as a means of tracking stats. Something about the four suits could work out nicely for the paired dualties. The Talbot could use clubs (paws) and spades (hands) for tracking instinct/reason, while the chorus could use hearts (passion) and diamonds (facts?) for tracking Pack/Herd actions.

Anyhow! That's just a glimpse of pages of notes I've scrawled for this idea so far.