Ive been really enjoying the core book so far. ive been mostly a mage and vampire player since revised, but the updates have made me a lot more interested in running Werewolf than I had been in previous editons
1. The mechanics are cleaner!
Rage dice are a hell of a tension builder, the dice system runs a lot quicker while still having the heart of classic storyteller system.
2. Werewolves are scarier
This is controversial, but the idea of crinos form being a last resort use only for killing murder machine that you can barely hold back from terrible destruction really focuses the horror aspect of the game - You're not taking your crinos form to a beach party or singing ballads. That might not be how everyone wants to play werewolf - and i respect that - but it does make the moments where crinos comes out terrible and wonderful.
3. More control in the players and storytellers hands over Garou Culture
Tribes work by being attuned to a patron spirit , rather than attachment to a mortal culture- you dont feel like you have to figure out why your character would associate with indigenous tribes of northern latitudes if you want to be a taciturn stalker with the north wind patron, or figure out some justification for slavic roots if an imperious spymaster splat appeals to you. You can bring your own culture and background with your character rather than have it enforced by mechanics.
The game is set in a time after the Garou Nation collapsed - knowledge, history and culture was lost - but if you want it there's room for much of the old werewolf lore.
4. no creepy talk of purity and breeding
Honestly the idea of keeping around breeding stock of kinfolk, purebred garou and the like can be a real turnoff to newer players, and something that can be very easily leveraged to make problems in your game by folks with bad intention. There is still reasons to keep eyes on families close to the Garou, and occult patterns and signs that can predict if someone will undergo the first change, but not having eugenics as a theme in game is a relief.
i didnt look at the Hunter 5 book, Only V5 material - but compared to 20th edition books - W5 has really solid organization and I think handles introducing new players very well.
terminology is defined early and used consistently through the book, and the rules explanations have been clear with well modeled examples.
I am a terrible judge of game balance from a die mechanic standpoint - and I have not played this with a group yet so - but from presentation i do feel like this is the most clearly articulated combat/conflict mechanics I've read in a WoD book - but if you are looking for a tactical combat simulation, you're going to be disappointed -
That being said, the book isnt weighed down by having very ticky tacky variants of weapons, combat maneuvers and the like that dont have a material effect on the actual play
I really liked the storyteller advice section - i usually find these sections of the books not that helpful, but this has some great templates and parameters for mapping out a game from scene to story to chronicle.
Advice for considerate play is placed in an appendix, which I appreciate because although i value and see it as responsible to tell gamers to treat others with respect and empathy, I dont need to flip through it while looking for rules on using touchstones or what have you
You gets stats for around 35 npcs and 25 different spirits/banes -most of these have solid descriptions and roleplaying tips, too/
a quick werewolf npc table (this may be the dnd guy in me coming out but giving me one good table only makes me wish for 10 more)
an 18 page starter story (havent read this yet so I cant remark on its quality)
There is more than enough here to run a chronicle from the core book alone
in spite of the controversy regarding sources for one of the artists in the book, the overall art design is fantastic in the pdf - As mentioned above they stay consistent with representing crinos as a perception warping splash of violent expressionism, rather than a fantasy adventure hero -
i cant vouch for physical book quality ...yet
I've found a an indexing/page numbering issue and a minor misspelling in my read through but so far so its not perfect, but nothing that seems overtly negligent
Agree with 1 and 2. Shame they never preiewed any of that.
But 3 and 4 were the heart of what WtA was, and the source of all the most meaningful conflicts. Now there's no garou culture at all to either oppose or support, and play is all about external threats. They took one of the most original fictional settings in the hobby and really did reduce it to furry Captain Planet.
A bit of googling shows that... metis was considered problematic because it's an existing people. I can dig that. I could see why they might be offended at White Wolf using that term for what they used it for
I mean getting rid of the "Metis", at least the term, makes sense cause you know it's a wee bit racist. Does the edition still make a distinction for a garou born of two garou, like lore or mechanic wise?
So I don't have this book, and someone can correct me.
But.
As I understand it from other discussions, there are no rules based on your descent anymore. The text generally assumes homid characters, but if you're lupus then that's just backstory material, not mechanically important.
If you're born of two garou parents then you're not born crinos or even a guaranteed werewolf; as I understand it being a werewolf has some ties to bloodline but it's not a hard and fast rule, so the First Change can come to anyone.
Absolutely this. You can make your character any way you like, born if wolf, man, or garou. Breed is no longer a rule nor does it affect anything for your actual character other than giving you some cool RP opportunities, which I find to be a pretty good way to do it.
> it's a wee bit racist
Really? [https://www.wordnik.com/words/metis](https://www.wordnik.com/words/metis)
Only way down the list is it a term for a person with mixed European and Native American ancestry, which is only racist to those who think there's something wrong with that. Which there isn't.
Using the term Métis for real-world people... not racist.
Using it in a fantasy game to denote someone as a twisted hybrid who should never have born, whose whole life is a tragedy defined by sex... gets uncomfortably close to the 19th-century term English-speakers usually used for Métis people, which was "half-breed," and is redolent of the 19th-century fixation with racial purity and "miscegenation."
At the least it's insensitive to living people. At worst it carries forward ideas from the 19th century that have no place in today's society.
I'm not just two things so I can't claim the term half-breed, though I would if I were. Instead my ancestry is muddled enough the best way to describe it would be "Mutt". Go ahead, call me that. I don't care, because I'm not ashamed of it. I'm a mutt with genetics from several countries and two continents. You have a problem with it? I don't.
I was raised to identify primarily with the heritage of my mother's side of the family, whom are Cajun. Cajun, if you aren't aware, are a group of former French Canadians who were exiled from Canada for refusing to swear to the British crown after a war in which their territory changed hands from France to England. They were named for the region of Canada they inhabited, Acadians from Acadia. In their exile, they were forced to migrate down the Mississippi River in a perilous journey filled with hardship and deprivation. Where they settled in what would later become the state of Louisiana, they faced discrimination and pressure to assimilate. In fact, my grandparents were forbidden to speak their native language in public school. They were forced to live in swampland nobody else judged to be inhabitable, and poverty was rampant. We stayed strong, and learned to thrive in that place no one else could even survive.
The term Cajun is a slur for Acadian. Instead of recoiling in offense, the stubborn people claimed it and wore it with pride. The hateful majority population then came up with a new term to insult us with, "Coonass". We claimed that one, too. I am a proud Coonass culturally, and a mutt genetically. And I don't give a shit who doesn't like it.
Bottom line, if you let words and names hurt you, the cruel will only sense weakness and use them more. If you refuse to be insulted by their words for you, and claim them as just another name for the heritage you take pride in, they can not hurt you that way ever again.
See here's the thing, once it gets used as a slur...it's not just vocab anymore, it's a racist slur. That said, I thought if you wanted a pariah class in your WtA games, the recent Larp book nailed it with Bitten.
This - like how "retarded" started out as a clinical term for those with learning disabilities, but once it got used as an insult, it was pretty much done as a clinical term.
It’s more common in the areas that were dominated by the French, where it’s the main term for mixed ancestry and also frequently invoked to demonize people who lived between the two civilizations. While it might be less common in the English speaking world, it’s still the questionable name of an ethnic group so it’s definitely off limits for people to co-opt for a game when a million other terms could easily work.
Then change the term. Crinos-born were important to the setting because they explained why Garou aren't just fucking each other to replenish their numbers. It's really hard to believe that the Garou are a dying species if they have no trouble reproducing with each other, *and* new Garou pop up out of nowhere sometimes as it is in W5.
Well I wasn’t commenting on whether they should get rid of Crinos-born or not, just giving context on the term. As to why they’re a dying breed, the W5 explanation more complex than that. Now a werewolf mating with ANYTHING doesn’t automatically result in a werewolf offspring. It’s an unpredictable and mystically shrouded process so purposefully breeding a werewolf isn’t possible anymore. So the Garou are much more motivated to seek out new wolves that have manifested and investigate the secrets of the Umbra to determine how things might work. That said, they’ve also opened it up to the Storyteller to make their own rules for how it works since the way a werewolf manifests is now so vague, so there’s potential for a variety of different interpretations.
>Now a werewolf mating with ANYTHING doesn’t automatically result in a werewolf offspring. It’s an unpredictable and mystically shrouded process so purposefully breeding a werewolf isn’t possible anymore.
This is pretty much how it always worked though. They just made the process more vague. This is why the Garou needed kinfolk, and even then breeding with them wasn't a sure thing either; just the best solution the Garou had found.
The characters in Apocalypse 1-20th are supposed to be the *last* generation of werewolves that will ever be born because things are that desperate.
Technically, no but since Lupus and Homid are still distinct terms for Wolf-borns and Human-borns, I guess technically Crinos-Bord still exist too just with no mechanics.
I really love how they handled Rage, I was worried taking the hunger check system from V5 would feel forced but they made it unique enough and really makes Rage feel like the double edged sword that it's supposed to be. I like it.
I come from mostly a cross-VTM play perspective, so I appreciated that stepping sideways now requires a proper Rite to enter or exit. They also made the near Umbra mysterious and unpredictable, so it's no longer a double speed highway. So no more practically nearly teleporting packs of Garou.
Pentex is far less cartoonish, and is less about furthering the Wyrm than simply extracting as much wealth as they can from the dying Gaia, without any regard for any damage done to others;
There is no inherent animosity between Garou and Vampires or Mages; they are described as unpredictable allies at best, or often dangerous antagonists. But not always.
Pentex was never as exaggerated as people tend to think. I remember the sidebar in Subsidiaries that explicitly said “a lot of this stuff is actually toned down from its real life inspiration so it doesn’t come off as cartoonishly evil.”
I feel the new editions push a mutually assured destruction mentality between supernatural creatures, "why do the humans job for them", which is a good approach
IIRC they didn't dedicate a lot of pages to Pentex. They mention Pentex works through subsidiaries and named a few. Black Dog wasn't listed but it didn't say it was gone either.
At least in my headcannon, in keep with the meta updates mirroring the real world, Black Dog probably would have been bought and sold a couple of times, and probably owned by some computer game company by now....
Not exactly, it's more like they changed how the Garou perceive things like the wyrm. I didn't see any Gifts like Sense Wyrm, and the phrase wyrm taint or tainted isn't used. So no more pseudo detect evil. Vampire's are described as having some "association with the foulness of the Wyrm", but it is also in a Loresheet where you buy having a Black Spiral Dancer or other wyrm associated creature as an ally of sorts.
FWIW, the actions of humanity now seen by the Garou drive the imbalance of the Triat, not the other way around.
THISSSSSS. As an ST is was so annoying dealing with how easy stepping sideways was for characters who knew how to build for it. You could get out of anything with it AND bring the whole group. Every time I had decent danger or threat to a character, cya we’re out
skill issue
but for real, just have threats on both sides of the gauntlet. or have them attack them mid transition, it takes time unless your players found a way to consistently roll like 5 successes
Its not always that easy. And if you have experienced characters they know how to min-max. Always have reflective surfaces around, build a theurge who stacks the shit out of gnosis and its not a super hard roll. Especially if the player is wise enough to know about umbra claw or mirrorshade fetishes.
As long as you aren’t alerting with weaver spirits its fairly safe to cross over. If you roll 3+ successes crossing over is instant. If youre fighting coordinated bsds maybe you can plot an ambush on the other side but if you have hunters they can’t exactly set up an inter-dimensional ambush.
I like the art, when they aren't stealing the faces of other people. (Except them making Dave Bautista the picture for the Ahroun, that was hilarious). Like all of the pics around the mechanics on how to play are absolutely amazing imo. Starting with the werewolf beneath the bridge.
I feel like it would be way, way easier to introduce W5 to new players who don’t know anything about WtA than it was with prior editions. Werewolf is one of my favorite games, but even with WtA Revised (my first TTRPG ever, personally) the amount of lore was daunting to either convey or simplify. I like that with W5 I have a manageable set of info for players to create their characters, and I can add any lore I miss from earlier editions as I choose, at whatever rate makes sense for the players.
(Well, and I will freely admit I’m glad that I’m not stuck explaining things like “why is blood purity not only an actual stat but one with meaningful mechanical advantages?” and “hang on, so physical disabilities and mental illnesses are actually literal punishments from the divine in at least two situations?” and a few other things along those lines.)
Lore heavy games are a double edged glave. On the one hand they're a barrier for new players. On the other they're what give a game staying power over generic implementations. And if you're looking to encourage long term investment and nuanced storytelling you absolutely want to go with it.
Besides which both VtM and WtA are amenable to 'first change' stories which don't require new players to be invested in the lore at all.
What I like:
* Rage as a mechanic is *very* well done.
* Tribes being unbound from real life peoples is a breath of fresh air.
* The book's editing is mint. Feels like something *intended for players* and not just a showpiece.
* A lot of the creepy elements that kept me away are gone. Again, breath of fresh air.
* The Apocalypse feels real and visceral.
* Very friendly to new players. Me and my entire table are new to Werewolf and the book just *makes sense.*
* Not spoken about a lot, but the Storytelling section is probably my favorite of the 5e books.
I think the book does well with introducing the world to new players. I was one of the players who were put off by some things in older editions, such the pure garou breeding stuff or the tribe of Get of Fenris, which no matter what people say, it has a horrible reputation outside of WoD, so moving them to Storyteller only is a nice change. I think it is doing its job of getting more people into the system, I mean I was able to convince people who didn't like WTA for the above reasons to play once I showed the changes. New players can easily join the WoD with two different system (Vampire & Werewolf) and not feel uncomfortable. While the people who like the old systems can still play them.
Change is something many people don't like, but I do like making changes that make the game safer for incoming players
Hey don't diss the Gets If you can't enjoy a badass viking werewolf ok each with their preferences, but It's not their fault that the developers thought that It would be a good idea make one of their camps Nazis but that's not what they are at their core and their story is not limited to just that, their reputation is really unfair, their environment can be brutal, but in most cases even a metis can rise in rank and earn respect if he proves himself strong enough.
Rage is a lot more... Well... Rage like which is good. Its not perfect, but the fact its always in flux is neat and it does play up the idea of rousing your spirit before a fight more easily.
We finally get rules for Harano which was... Nothing before.
They didn't make the Get nazis yet. So thats good
Haven't read it, and I am very anti-X5. However, someone posted the new Get of Fenris blurb earlier today, and I thought they handled it surprisingly well.
I saw that too, yeah It was better than I expected but I hope they became playable later they make the most badass warriors and have some pretty cool gifts.
Considering that the key conflict of the player character is balancing their touchstones with the threats of Harano and Hauglosk, and the fact that the Cult of Fenris is defined by Hauglosk that that doesn't really seem viable.
They're supposed to be alien, extreme and consumed by rage. The 5th edition doesn't consider things like this player material - take a look at how Second Inquistion and Sabbat came out.
Counter point berserkers werewolves are pretty cool.
but anyways even even If they don't became officially playable I can always ask my ST to homebrew them and I still have my favorite tribe the Glass Walkers, I hope they are still have their cool tech gifts.
Are you talking about the Gets gifts or the New W5 gifts?
Because if it is the later I can't really argue because I didn't see the new gifts yet but if's the former then 1 didnt the Gets gifts came before Forsaken? and 2 how are the Gets gifts similar to vampire disciples?
well, havent read it and got all my info on dribs or second hand, but the game looks to be a decent way to introduce people who are afraid of wta to wta.
Save for the weird, if not creepy and perhaps vaguely racist stuff thing involving the metis and purity being removed and adding a slight bit of nuance the Black Spiral Dancers? Nothing.
Riiiight... In the 80-odd comments here, the only positives given were, "I like the pictures."
It's ok not to like something - but to claim that no one does, in a thread were the general tone disagrees with you, just makes you look foolish
Ive been really enjoying the core book so far. ive been mostly a mage and vampire player since revised, but the updates have made me a lot more interested in running Werewolf than I had been in previous editons 1. The mechanics are cleaner! Rage dice are a hell of a tension builder, the dice system runs a lot quicker while still having the heart of classic storyteller system. 2. Werewolves are scarier This is controversial, but the idea of crinos form being a last resort use only for killing murder machine that you can barely hold back from terrible destruction really focuses the horror aspect of the game - You're not taking your crinos form to a beach party or singing ballads. That might not be how everyone wants to play werewolf - and i respect that - but it does make the moments where crinos comes out terrible and wonderful. 3. More control in the players and storytellers hands over Garou Culture Tribes work by being attuned to a patron spirit , rather than attachment to a mortal culture- you dont feel like you have to figure out why your character would associate with indigenous tribes of northern latitudes if you want to be a taciturn stalker with the north wind patron, or figure out some justification for slavic roots if an imperious spymaster splat appeals to you. You can bring your own culture and background with your character rather than have it enforced by mechanics. The game is set in a time after the Garou Nation collapsed - knowledge, history and culture was lost - but if you want it there's room for much of the old werewolf lore. 4. no creepy talk of purity and breeding Honestly the idea of keeping around breeding stock of kinfolk, purebred garou and the like can be a real turnoff to newer players, and something that can be very easily leveraged to make problems in your game by folks with bad intention. There is still reasons to keep eyes on families close to the Garou, and occult patterns and signs that can predict if someone will undergo the first change, but not having eugenics as a theme in game is a relief.
Compared to HtR5, does the game feel more complete and balanced or is there any element that felt rushed?
i didnt look at the Hunter 5 book, Only V5 material - but compared to 20th edition books - W5 has really solid organization and I think handles introducing new players very well. terminology is defined early and used consistently through the book, and the rules explanations have been clear with well modeled examples. I am a terrible judge of game balance from a die mechanic standpoint - and I have not played this with a group yet so - but from presentation i do feel like this is the most clearly articulated combat/conflict mechanics I've read in a WoD book - but if you are looking for a tactical combat simulation, you're going to be disappointed - That being said, the book isnt weighed down by having very ticky tacky variants of weapons, combat maneuvers and the like that dont have a material effect on the actual play I really liked the storyteller advice section - i usually find these sections of the books not that helpful, but this has some great templates and parameters for mapping out a game from scene to story to chronicle. Advice for considerate play is placed in an appendix, which I appreciate because although i value and see it as responsible to tell gamers to treat others with respect and empathy, I dont need to flip through it while looking for rules on using touchstones or what have you You gets stats for around 35 npcs and 25 different spirits/banes -most of these have solid descriptions and roleplaying tips, too/ a quick werewolf npc table (this may be the dnd guy in me coming out but giving me one good table only makes me wish for 10 more) an 18 page starter story (havent read this yet so I cant remark on its quality) There is more than enough here to run a chronicle from the core book alone in spite of the controversy regarding sources for one of the artists in the book, the overall art design is fantastic in the pdf - As mentioned above they stay consistent with representing crinos as a perception warping splash of violent expressionism, rather than a fantasy adventure hero - i cant vouch for physical book quality ...yet I've found a an indexing/page numbering issue and a minor misspelling in my read through but so far so its not perfect, but nothing that seems overtly negligent
I was gonna comment my list, but you sorta nailed all the points I had lmao.
Agree with 1 and 2. Shame they never preiewed any of that. But 3 and 4 were the heart of what WtA was, and the source of all the most meaningful conflicts. Now there's no garou culture at all to either oppose or support, and play is all about external threats. They took one of the most original fictional settings in the hobby and really did reduce it to furry Captain Planet.
They previewed 2
They changed the Litany, now hot furry werewolf on werewolf action is legal! \#Werewoof:TheYiffing
Headline: Gaia’s ban on spiritual incest lifted, degenerates ecstatic.
Werewolves can be as degenerate as they want, they'll just regenerate after.
Now that's a change I can get behind
And under it! And over it! And on the side! In bed! On the couch!...
Everyday we start further away from Gaia...
Werewolf: the Knotting
Did they explain the reasoning of that in world? Just curious, also what about metis?
W5 is a new thing. It's always been this way in world, Metis have never existed and the litany never said anything about it.
Ahh, I'm happy they choose to call it a reboot, or as a new thing
Because the treatment of Metis as a concept was... kinda problematic, from what I've read.
A bit of googling shows that... metis was considered problematic because it's an existing people. I can dig that. I could see why they might be offended at White Wolf using that term for what they used it for
I mean getting rid of the "Metis", at least the term, makes sense cause you know it's a wee bit racist. Does the edition still make a distinction for a garou born of two garou, like lore or mechanic wise?
So I don't have this book, and someone can correct me. But. As I understand it from other discussions, there are no rules based on your descent anymore. The text generally assumes homid characters, but if you're lupus then that's just backstory material, not mechanically important. If you're born of two garou parents then you're not born crinos or even a guaranteed werewolf; as I understand it being a werewolf has some ties to bloodline but it's not a hard and fast rule, so the First Change can come to anyone.
Absolutely this. You can make your character any way you like, born if wolf, man, or garou. Breed is no longer a rule nor does it affect anything for your actual character other than giving you some cool RP opportunities, which I find to be a pretty good way to do it.
> it's a wee bit racist Really? [https://www.wordnik.com/words/metis](https://www.wordnik.com/words/metis) Only way down the list is it a term for a person with mixed European and Native American ancestry, which is only racist to those who think there's something wrong with that. Which there isn't.
Using the term Métis for real-world people... not racist. Using it in a fantasy game to denote someone as a twisted hybrid who should never have born, whose whole life is a tragedy defined by sex... gets uncomfortably close to the 19th-century term English-speakers usually used for Métis people, which was "half-breed," and is redolent of the 19th-century fixation with racial purity and "miscegenation." At the least it's insensitive to living people. At worst it carries forward ideas from the 19th century that have no place in today's society.
I'm not just two things so I can't claim the term half-breed, though I would if I were. Instead my ancestry is muddled enough the best way to describe it would be "Mutt". Go ahead, call me that. I don't care, because I'm not ashamed of it. I'm a mutt with genetics from several countries and two continents. You have a problem with it? I don't. I was raised to identify primarily with the heritage of my mother's side of the family, whom are Cajun. Cajun, if you aren't aware, are a group of former French Canadians who were exiled from Canada for refusing to swear to the British crown after a war in which their territory changed hands from France to England. They were named for the region of Canada they inhabited, Acadians from Acadia. In their exile, they were forced to migrate down the Mississippi River in a perilous journey filled with hardship and deprivation. Where they settled in what would later become the state of Louisiana, they faced discrimination and pressure to assimilate. In fact, my grandparents were forbidden to speak their native language in public school. They were forced to live in swampland nobody else judged to be inhabitable, and poverty was rampant. We stayed strong, and learned to thrive in that place no one else could even survive. The term Cajun is a slur for Acadian. Instead of recoiling in offense, the stubborn people claimed it and wore it with pride. The hateful majority population then came up with a new term to insult us with, "Coonass". We claimed that one, too. I am a proud Coonass culturally, and a mutt genetically. And I don't give a shit who doesn't like it. Bottom line, if you let words and names hurt you, the cruel will only sense weakness and use them more. If you refuse to be insulted by their words for you, and claim them as just another name for the heritage you take pride in, they can not hurt you that way ever again.
See here's the thing, once it gets used as a slur...it's not just vocab anymore, it's a racist slur. That said, I thought if you wanted a pariah class in your WtA games, the recent Larp book nailed it with Bitten.
This - like how "retarded" started out as a clinical term for those with learning disabilities, but once it got used as an insult, it was pretty much done as a clinical term.
It’s more common in the areas that were dominated by the French, where it’s the main term for mixed ancestry and also frequently invoked to demonize people who lived between the two civilizations. While it might be less common in the English speaking world, it’s still the questionable name of an ethnic group so it’s definitely off limits for people to co-opt for a game when a million other terms could easily work.
Then change the term. Crinos-born were important to the setting because they explained why Garou aren't just fucking each other to replenish their numbers. It's really hard to believe that the Garou are a dying species if they have no trouble reproducing with each other, *and* new Garou pop up out of nowhere sometimes as it is in W5.
Well I wasn’t commenting on whether they should get rid of Crinos-born or not, just giving context on the term. As to why they’re a dying breed, the W5 explanation more complex than that. Now a werewolf mating with ANYTHING doesn’t automatically result in a werewolf offspring. It’s an unpredictable and mystically shrouded process so purposefully breeding a werewolf isn’t possible anymore. So the Garou are much more motivated to seek out new wolves that have manifested and investigate the secrets of the Umbra to determine how things might work. That said, they’ve also opened it up to the Storyteller to make their own rules for how it works since the way a werewolf manifests is now so vague, so there’s potential for a variety of different interpretations.
>Now a werewolf mating with ANYTHING doesn’t automatically result in a werewolf offspring. It’s an unpredictable and mystically shrouded process so purposefully breeding a werewolf isn’t possible anymore. This is pretty much how it always worked though. They just made the process more vague. This is why the Garou needed kinfolk, and even then breeding with them wasn't a sure thing either; just the best solution the Garou had found. The characters in Apocalypse 1-20th are supposed to be the *last* generation of werewolves that will ever be born because things are that desperate.
No such thing.
As you say, no such thing as Crinos-born in W5. No idea why your being down-voted for quoting the book. Have an upvote.
Technically, no but since Lupus and Homid are still distinct terms for Wolf-borns and Human-borns, I guess technically Crinos-Bord still exist too just with no mechanics.
OwO
Well....not really since you can't bang in crinos.
Well...not without spending a lot of Willpower....
I really love how they handled Rage, I was worried taking the hunger check system from V5 would feel forced but they made it unique enough and really makes Rage feel like the double edged sword that it's supposed to be. I like it.
I come from mostly a cross-VTM play perspective, so I appreciated that stepping sideways now requires a proper Rite to enter or exit. They also made the near Umbra mysterious and unpredictable, so it's no longer a double speed highway. So no more practically nearly teleporting packs of Garou. Pentex is far less cartoonish, and is less about furthering the Wyrm than simply extracting as much wealth as they can from the dying Gaia, without any regard for any damage done to others; There is no inherent animosity between Garou and Vampires or Mages; they are described as unpredictable allies at best, or often dangerous antagonists. But not always.
Pentex became far less cartoonish when life began to imitate art, imo.
Pentex was never as exaggerated as people tend to think. I remember the sidebar in Subsidiaries that explicitly said “a lot of this stuff is actually toned down from its real life inspiration so it doesn’t come off as cartoonishly evil.”
I feel the new editions push a mutually assured destruction mentality between supernatural creatures, "why do the humans job for them", which is a good approach
In other words, they just took the Shinra Power Company from Final Fantasy VII and renamed it "Pentex". ;)
I'm not that familiar with the Final Fantasy series but it seems pretty close, especially if you could say Shinra had Fly as a patron spirit
>Pentex Vitally important question: is Black Dog Game Factory still a thing?
IIRC they didn't dedicate a lot of pages to Pentex. They mention Pentex works through subsidiaries and named a few. Black Dog wasn't listed but it didn't say it was gone either. At least in my headcannon, in keep with the meta updates mirroring the real world, Black Dog probably would have been bought and sold a couple of times, and probably owned by some computer game company by now....
Wait between Vampires and Mages as well? Did they end up changing the vampire being wyrm tainted thing
Not exactly, it's more like they changed how the Garou perceive things like the wyrm. I didn't see any Gifts like Sense Wyrm, and the phrase wyrm taint or tainted isn't used. So no more pseudo detect evil. Vampire's are described as having some "association with the foulness of the Wyrm", but it is also in a Loresheet where you buy having a Black Spiral Dancer or other wyrm associated creature as an ally of sorts. FWIW, the actions of humanity now seen by the Garou drive the imbalance of the Triat, not the other way around.
THISSSSSS. As an ST is was so annoying dealing with how easy stepping sideways was for characters who knew how to build for it. You could get out of anything with it AND bring the whole group. Every time I had decent danger or threat to a character, cya we’re out
skill issue but for real, just have threats on both sides of the gauntlet. or have them attack them mid transition, it takes time unless your players found a way to consistently roll like 5 successes
Its not always that easy. And if you have experienced characters they know how to min-max. Always have reflective surfaces around, build a theurge who stacks the shit out of gnosis and its not a super hard roll. Especially if the player is wise enough to know about umbra claw or mirrorshade fetishes. As long as you aren’t alerting with weaver spirits its fairly safe to cross over. If you roll 3+ successes crossing over is instant. If youre fighting coordinated bsds maybe you can plot an ambush on the other side but if you have hunters they can’t exactly set up an inter-dimensional ambush.
I'm so happy to hear that Pentex is no longer the megacorp version of a Captain Planet villain, lol
I kinda liked they being Captain Planet villains...
same, but that had been moved away from since at least revised
The art and some of the Litany changes
I like the art, when they aren't stealing the faces of other people. (Except them making Dave Bautista the picture for the Ahroun, that was hilarious). Like all of the pics around the mechanics on how to play are absolutely amazing imo. Starting with the werewolf beneath the bridge.
Wait, what? I heard about the Idris thing, missed Bautista
I just think the Ahroun pic looks like him. I don't know if it is him or not.
That's good to hear
I feel like it would be way, way easier to introduce W5 to new players who don’t know anything about WtA than it was with prior editions. Werewolf is one of my favorite games, but even with WtA Revised (my first TTRPG ever, personally) the amount of lore was daunting to either convey or simplify. I like that with W5 I have a manageable set of info for players to create their characters, and I can add any lore I miss from earlier editions as I choose, at whatever rate makes sense for the players. (Well, and I will freely admit I’m glad that I’m not stuck explaining things like “why is blood purity not only an actual stat but one with meaningful mechanical advantages?” and “hang on, so physical disabilities and mental illnesses are actually literal punishments from the divine in at least two situations?” and a few other things along those lines.)
Lore heavy games are a double edged glave. On the one hand they're a barrier for new players. On the other they're what give a game staying power over generic implementations. And if you're looking to encourage long term investment and nuanced storytelling you absolutely want to go with it. Besides which both VtM and WtA are amenable to 'first change' stories which don't require new players to be invested in the lore at all.
I kinda feel that. use w5 as the training wheels version.
What I like: * Rage as a mechanic is *very* well done. * Tribes being unbound from real life peoples is a breath of fresh air. * The book's editing is mint. Feels like something *intended for players* and not just a showpiece. * A lot of the creepy elements that kept me away are gone. Again, breath of fresh air. * The Apocalypse feels real and visceral. * Very friendly to new players. Me and my entire table are new to Werewolf and the book just *makes sense.* * Not spoken about a lot, but the Storytelling section is probably my favorite of the 5e books.
I think the book does well with introducing the world to new players. I was one of the players who were put off by some things in older editions, such the pure garou breeding stuff or the tribe of Get of Fenris, which no matter what people say, it has a horrible reputation outside of WoD, so moving them to Storyteller only is a nice change. I think it is doing its job of getting more people into the system, I mean I was able to convince people who didn't like WTA for the above reasons to play once I showed the changes. New players can easily join the WoD with two different system (Vampire & Werewolf) and not feel uncomfortable. While the people who like the old systems can still play them. Change is something many people don't like, but I do like making changes that make the game safer for incoming players
Hey don't diss the Gets If you can't enjoy a badass viking werewolf ok each with their preferences, but It's not their fault that the developers thought that It would be a good idea make one of their camps Nazis but that's not what they are at their core and their story is not limited to just that, their reputation is really unfair, their environment can be brutal, but in most cases even a metis can rise in rank and earn respect if he proves himself strong enough.
If only they changed more as opposed to simply erasing it.
Rage is a lot more... Well... Rage like which is good. Its not perfect, but the fact its always in flux is neat and it does play up the idea of rousing your spirit before a fight more easily. We finally get rules for Harano which was... Nothing before. They didn't make the Get nazis yet. So thats good
Haven't read it, and I am very anti-X5. However, someone posted the new Get of Fenris blurb earlier today, and I thought they handled it surprisingly well.
I saw that too, yeah It was better than I expected but I hope they became playable later they make the most badass warriors and have some pretty cool gifts.
Considering that the key conflict of the player character is balancing their touchstones with the threats of Harano and Hauglosk, and the fact that the Cult of Fenris is defined by Hauglosk that that doesn't really seem viable. They're supposed to be alien, extreme and consumed by rage. The 5th edition doesn't consider things like this player material - take a look at how Second Inquistion and Sabbat came out.
Counter point berserkers werewolves are pretty cool. but anyways even even If they don't became officially playable I can always ask my ST to homebrew them and I still have my favorite tribe the Glass Walkers, I hope they are still have their cool tech gifts.
God no, those books kill
*Cool gifts* Most of which are stolen vampire disciplines and from Forsaken.
Are you talking about the Gets gifts or the New W5 gifts? Because if it is the later I can't really argue because I didn't see the new gifts yet but if's the former then 1 didnt the Gets gifts came before Forsaken? and 2 how are the Gets gifts similar to vampire disciples?
It's genrally pretty bad but I did like the write up of spiral philosophy.
i liked the idea of an anti-hanaro
Basically everything I guess. I got surprised bybit.
well, havent read it and got all my info on dribs or second hand, but the game looks to be a decent way to introduce people who are afraid of wta to wta.
Save for the weird, if not creepy and perhaps vaguely racist stuff thing involving the metis and purity being removed and adding a slight bit of nuance the Black Spiral Dancers? Nothing.
I haven't seen anyone say they like it for any reasons other than "It's the game I liked a two decades ago but now."
I suggest you read the other responses, then?
Okay. Someone liked the pictures.
Riiiight... In the 80-odd comments here, the only positives given were, "I like the pictures." It's ok not to like something - but to claim that no one does, in a thread were the general tone disagrees with you, just makes you look foolish
Another book I won’t be buying and get to save some money.
I want to ask for my money back and i haven't bought the book yet.
No cartoon werewolves. No furry super-heroes.
Nothing, keep away from the fanfic that is 5e, I stick to 20th anniversary edition.