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[Ana Mizuki]

At the end of the day, that stuff shouldn't matter at all. But being aware that some people -might- freak out about it is good. Even if the game is a fantasy game, even if it makes sense in setting.

Same goes with different ways people have houseruled WtA. The way you understand the game can be wildly different from the way someone else does. I ran into a RP log detailing the difference between a Deed Name and a Rite Name for garou, for example. Which is entirely a houserule. Same with shifting to birth form while you sleep. But people will still hold these as canon, because that...

[Ana Mizuki]

This is a very general question and so to the general area it goes. As a fan of a lot of the darker things in WoD, I often run into examples of character splats that seem flat and uninspired. Cenobite aping Tzimisce being the best example of a typical character trope I am referring to.

So, those who play your Tzimisce/Nephandi/Salubri/BSDs,etc, how do you make sure your character isn't just a vehicle for gore and horror and nothing else? What makes them, maybe not human, but a person beyond their splat?

For me, the general rule is twisted morality and things the character...

[Ana Mizuki]

This isn't a new thing, actually. I've read a lot of stuff far back how people saw the existence of lupus character as shock jockeying (since for them it implied zoophilia), there is the good ol' 'eww furry' issue and Purebreed being basically eugenics. Aside from the spirit world being hokey.

It is just a very real thing that can crop up when you least expect it. Better explain these things existing in the setting before it comes through in play and starts an argument....

[Ana Mizuki]

You'd be very surprised. Some players are MEGA uncomfortable about lupus, purebreed and such....

[Ana Mizuki]

A bit belated, but as someone who has seen plenty of WtA arguments over the nature of the garou, please ask what level of anthromorphism is ok to your players. Because WtA is a game about wolves and humans and talking spirit animals and trees,etc. Are they ok with the lupus breed, what about the metis breed?

[Ana Mizuki]

As long as you have the garou blood, there is always some wolf genetics in you. So a human kinfolk whose grandfather was an arabian wolf will produce someone who has traits of arabian wolves.

With Glass Walkers and Bone Gnawers, I've seen their 'doggy' looks as sign of longer periods of just human blood. But I do think that the garou are so widespread that you don't need PB to have traits of different subspecies in you. On the opposite, if you go for selective breeding like the Fangs, you might lack this diversity.

For example, a Shadow Lord whose family has lived in...

[Ana Mizuki]

Yep, but for some garou, it is a needed respit from their stressful lives. Like human kin are, essentially....

[Ana Mizuki]

Who says wolf kinfolk can't have personal lives, they are just with their pack and other wolves.

The thing with including wolf kinfolk is, that the game then must also showcase that these wolves are people as much as the human kinfolk are. This does mean the game has 'talking' wolves, but that is kind of the point. The usefulness of the wolf kinfolk is that they see things in the wild that humans don't AND offer the garou a chance to be with wolves who understand them. Same with human kinfolk, only in the modern world, human kinfolk are generally more useful because humans rule the...

[Ana Mizuki]

Naah, they just want to play the human concept and shoehorn the whole wolf there quickly. The first wolf pic found in google and all that.

Mind, I'm not saying that it is -wrong-, but I think another game would be more fitting for that.

Plus, this is why I think of WtA as more of a fantasy game than anything else. The setting asks you to make someone who doesn't have a day job, fights monsters and is a supernatural being from a long line of those. And, they changed in their teens most likely, so they couldn't have been a cop or a marine or anything like that. To some...

[Ana Mizuki]

I mean, to be brutally honest, the issue isn't that there aren't jobs for these garou to do. It is that they aren't -people- jobs, they aren't jobs that pay. Or they aren't jobs that the character can do without being a werewolf.

There is a sense of "This character is job X, orientation Y AND they are a werewolf" with the characters that have complex human jobs. Rather than "This is characteris tribe Y, Auspice Z and breed Y, they do job Å to earn money". There is nothing wrong with that in practise, but it ends up creating the aformentioned issue.

...

[Ana Mizuki]

For me, NWoD's method works because it was build from ground up to leave enough 'holes' in the setting for the races to exist or not exist. Most likely, because crossover in cWoD is a huge mess, because the gamelines went their own ways, but referenced each other, but were separate, etc.

To use a weird allegory, cWoD is like piling a bunch of fantasy books on to of one another, it is dense and the more you have to make sure it doesn't fall over. NWoD is like legos, sure you can build it like the instructions, or you can build what you like. I love the setting of cWoD a lot, but I...

[Ana Mizuki]

NWoD approach to cosmology, pretty much. Importance is to make the world feel like you don't know everything and things can't be put into neat boxes on what each creature is. I have used NWoD creatures in non-dice games, because they have a good variation of things and don't need to be attached to anything else....

[Ana Mizuki]

I don't mind garou having jobs that make sense for them, especially for lower Rage garou. For me, the problems arise when the jobs are things like a lawyer, psychologist or a elementary school teacher, jobs that need your commitment and where you are much more in the spotlight. Especially if non-homid.

Though the bigger reason I mused about this is that there are those who legit do NOT tolerate the idea of a moocher garou or anything related to that. Which then leads to the kinfolk issue and so on.

I mean, the SETTING is clear, it is just the player pushback that creates...

[Ana Mizuki]

The problem:

A huge number of players, STs and writers for the WtA line generally do not like how limiting Rage is towards garou getting a job. A lot of people want their garou having a job to define them further. The concept of a murder hobo is seen as negative, as well. Yet, that's what the garou are. Garou living in communes is seen as bad or wrong by some, to the point that even septs don't have living spaces.

All of which steps very heavily on the duties kinfolk do for the Nation, ASIDE from being breeding stock.

My solution:


1. Make...