W5 auspices and forms

[Lunar Falcon]

Did anyone else catch the part where it said that if you change forms too often you can lose the wolf? Who do they think the target audience is who believes there should be less shape-shifting in a game about shapeshifters?

[Heavy Arms]

I believe #3 is more that he's not sure the final Gift, regardless of name, will make it into W5. I have no idea why he wouldn't know that by this point in where the game seems to be, but given how many "summon wind," powers were in WtA already, I can see cutting some of them out on general principle.

[Knightingale]

There are three things that bother me about this twitter-thread:

1) I mean, who cares, right? I could understand caring about this for a W20-release. Nostalgia mixed with sort-of trying to be a new edition at the same time could get you to a place where the names of Gifts from previous editions are somehow relevant. But this is a "re-imagination" with a lot of indications of throwing out a ton of lore. So, caring about the name of a Gift from a previous edition doesn't seem that important.

2) In the context of what Satyros tweets and what Justin says in response, that first tweet is so weird. The first tweet calls the renaming of the Gift a "personal victory" and laments the unintentional humor of the name. Then Satyros explains that this was discussed actually back in the 90s and Bill Bridges wanted it that way. And Justin responds that he remembers Bill Bridges having a similar discussion with Justin in the room while talking about a CCG. So in the 90s Bill Bridges was a colleague of Justin Achilli and they actually discussed the matter of the humorous Gift-names. And now in charge of W5 Justin calls it a "personal victory" to change the name of such a Gift and calls it "unintentional humor". Justin Achilli has insight into why WtA was designed the way it was few people have. So there are only two options here, both not good: Either he cared so little about WtA in the past that he genuinely forgot his discussions with Bill Bridges about WtA - or he didn't actually forget and the "personal victory" is him trying to erase stuff from WtA he never liked but in the 90s he couldn't because of his position in White Wolf and because Bill Bridges didn't agree with him.

3) I'm not super-familiar with RPG-development but Justin Achilli is the Creative Lead of the WOD-team. Why would his decision to rename a Gift not survive production...? Unless the new name is super-lengthy or problematic, how could this even happen? Who would be there to tell the Creative Lead "No, you can't change the name of this Gift."?

[Heavy Arms]

What worries me most about that whole Twitter thread, is that crowing about finally getting to remove a fart joke should be the absolute last thing on the mind of someone redoing WtA. Gifts have always been a problem for WtA because there's an insane number of them, the consistency of their power/utility is all over the place, and their low XP costs meant players tended to want to grab tons of them which was starkly out line with how the authors seemed to assume character would only learn a small handful of them.

Forsaken 1e made Gifts like Disciplines, which helped in some ways, and hurt in others. Forsaken 2e's approach seemed to have hit a nice balance.of better structure, integration of Renown, and not just being Disciplines with strange extra rules.

If Justin is completely redoing the Gifts in all this, renaming them should be the last of his worries. After all the Tribes aren't going to have cultural ties to human ethnic groups any more, so there shouldn't any Gifts from pre-W5 that are tied to specific mythologies as part of the Tribes cultural links to humans.

Why is there even a reason for Cutting Wind to be in whatever the new Gift setup is, if it basically only existed to give Younger Brother a cultural reference Gift for their cultural linked Tribe?

[Saur Ops Specialist]

I wouldn't quite describe W:tA as furry, but only because I usually associate that with a more neutral merging of human and whatever. Garou and Fera have a strong purpose-biased bent to what their "were-forms" are for, which results in things like wolves having among the largest and strongest such forms in spite of wolves being rather small, or Mokole not actually having a strict merging of just two forms, and of course, Ananasi just disrespect the system with every form that isn't human.

No, that was just a joke on my part. It never actually said Canis.

But you bring up an important aspect of the game. With Hispo and Lupus being part of the game, realistic vs fantastical in how you depict that compared to previous editions is a serious question. How much are players supposed to care about realistic wolf-physiology in their roleplaying of a Garou in general? Will there be a section in W5 dedicated to that? I guess, we'll see how W5 will tackle that.

If they're copying Forsaken as rampantly as they have been, they might raise a stink about chocolate consumption across forms, but forget that Garou don't keel over because of just a few non-magical alkaloids, or that Resist Toxin exists. I'm also expecting some... interesting mistakes regarding volumetrics, though hopefully that was just a result of the preview ad copy.

EDIT:
Okay, to me that just seems weird... This is an exchange Justin Achilli had on Twitter:



And Satyros and Bill Bridges add:

Huh. I never associated Cutting Wind with farts, if only because it was described as bitterly cold. Now, if you want scatology, you go for the Warding Mokole Gift: Spew, which explicitly noted that, while the default was drinking fluid and then throwing it back up with slime additives, the users were, ah, not limited to that orifice or system. Guess it doesn't get much press because it's off in a breed book away from the core.

[Ana Mizuki]

Knightingale Man, it does say something when people try to match the culture they took stuff from and it is treated as 'too silly.'

The same issue I have with people calling WtA Captain Planet with Furries or freaking out about Furries in the game. This is the nature of the beast, if you don't like it house rule it or play the non-furry WoD games XD

[Knightingale]

"Primordial wolves"... now, I know things worked differently in WoD, but in order to preserve that whole "like the real world, mostly" detail, I think it's still relevant that there have never been wolves anywhere near the size of Hispo. Not even half the bulk of Hispo (which is still larger than the average size of the dire wolf, aka the swole dhole aka this was not actually a wolf).

Did that get changed back to lupus? I'm not seeing it on the blog post now.

No, that was just a joke on my part. It never actually said Canis.

But you bring up an important aspect of the game. With Hispo and Lupus being part of the game, realistic vs fantastical in how you depict that compared to previous editions is a serious question. How much are players supposed to care about realistic wolf-physiology in their roleplaying of a Garou in general? Will there be a section in W5 dedicated to that? I guess, we'll see how W5 will tackle that.

EDIT:
Okay, to me that just seems weird... This is an exchange Justin Achilli had on Twitter:

Justin Achilli:
Bit of a personal victory, but the Gift "Cutting Wind" has been renamed. We'll see if it survives into production, but that one has always been unintentionally comical.

Satyros Brucato:
Nah - it was intentionally comical. I recall discussing "the fart joke Gift" with @bbridges back in the day, and asking if we could change it in Werewolf 2. Bill noted that folks tales are often far less squeamish about bodily functions...

Justin:
Now that you mention it, I remember @bbridges defending either “Cutting Wind” or “Broken Wind” during some Rage CCG planning, as well.

And Satyros and Bill Bridges add:

Satyros Brucato:
...and how such tales often feature farts, shitting, big dicks, and other stuff too "vulgar" for "proper society" to acknowledge.
And so, the fart Gift remained.
I don't recall if it was Rob Hatch or Sam Chupp who created that Gift. I do know it was SUPPOSED to be amusing.
Bill Bridges:
(He posted a link to a spirit from Innu mythology called Matshishkapeu)

[Saur Ops Specialist]

"Primordial wolves"... now, I know things worked differently in WoD, but in order to preserve that whole "like the real world, mostly" detail, I think it's still relevant that there have never been wolves anywhere near the size of Hispo. Not even half the bulk of Hispo (which is still larger than the average size of the dire wolf, aka the swole dhole aka this was not actually a wolf).

Part of the re-imagination is that the fifth form is now called "Canis" XD...

Did that get changed back to lupus? I'm not seeing it on the blog post now.

[Knightingale]

By contrast, Forsaken is weird to understand in a grammatic sense, since it's primarily nouns all the way down-being really reductive about it*, Rahu and Blood Talons are warriors, Ithaeur and Bone Shadows are witches, Irraka and Hunters in Darkness are assassins, Elodoth and Iron Masters are social manipulators, and the Cahalith and Storm Lords are leaders/warlords.

*really, really, really reducitve.

Considering how H5 presented its Creeds and how the WOD was presented there, what I fear we're going to get is exactly what you describe here - minus all the Forsaken-lore. And it doesn't get replaced with WtA-lore either. It's just straightforward, archetypical presentations that offer very broad frameworks and as much wriggle-room as possible to not "limit" the presentation of the player-character with any choice. At least, that's my current rather pessimistic perspective on where this is going to go.

[ArcaneArts]

Thank you, what I meant was that auspice -can- be removed at all. I don't think you -can- remove Apocalypse auspices, given even SKIN DANCERS get them.

This also cheapens what makes the Pure stand out. If Fenrir or BSDs remove their auspices, it draws poor comparisons to Pure and vice versa.

It also brings the two games closer and closer, maybe not entirely the same but worryingly close.

Yeah, I just got the nerd itch and had to clarify. Otherwise, yeah, it's an odd choice that doesn't particularly help anything.

[Ana Mizuki]

A minor correction: with clarification from The Sundered World ala Dark Eras* as well as the Second Edition core, Auspices in Forsaken are absolutely part and parcel of the werewolf being, and have to be ritually ripped away from (not washed away) if a werewolf wants to escape the influence of Luna, for all the good that it does them (exacerbating weaknesses in the Uratha condition rather than minimizing them). The Pure cutting out their Auspice is more akin to chopping off a hand.

That said, yeah, it doesn't make sense in the alliances and metaphysics of Apocalypse. Forsaken's Moon is a lot more sus than Apocalypse's Luna.

*[pushes her glasses up her nose and says nasally] Actually, as everyone knows-sorry, I couldn't get over how nerdy my own address is here.

Thank you, what I meant was that auspice -can- be removed at all. I don't think you -can- remove Apocalypse auspices, given even SKIN DANCERS get them.

This also cheapens what makes the Pure stand out. If Fenrir or BSDs remove their auspices, it draws poor comparisons to Pure and vice versa.

It also brings the two games closer and closer, maybe not entirely the same but worryingly close.

[ArcaneArts]

I mean, when Justin Achilli made that tweet months ago about how "Tribes is what you, Auspice is how you do it. The verbs are important.", I didn't think he literally meant he would use only verbs for this association-game. I also imagined something like you describe there. And it also reminded me of the Cypher-System like with Numenera where it's (adjective - character-descriptor) + (noun - character-class) + (phrase - specialization/special power) which results in sentences like "My character is a vengeful warrior that strikes with the might of giants." or something like that. There I can see how grammar is used as an allegory for the character-creation-process.

I believe the point is that in trying to explain the relationship between Auspice and Tribe, the attempt to compare it to grammatic parts makes it a little skewed.

For two contrasts from over in CHronicles, let's look at Awakening and Forsaken. In Awakening, your Path is your Idiom, it's the how of your magic and it's logical function, while your Order is your Motivation, the why, where, and when you employ your magic towards. That's a fairly neat and even way of laying out character design, with one side describing the ends and the other describing the means.

By contrast, Forsaken is weird to understand in a grammatic sense, since it's primarily nouns all the way down-being really reductive about it*, Rahu and Blood Talons are warriors, Ithaeur and Bone Shadows are witches, Irraka and Hunters in Darkness are assassins, Elodoth and Iron Masters are social manipulators, and the Cahalith and Storm Lords are leaders/warlords. The main reason that works, though, is first) Forsaken doesn't try to use the grammatic explanation, second) the roles are very differently approached when one compares the Auspices and Tribes, and thus if someone doublestacks on those nouns, it's just a fuller archeytpe, and third) the "dualclassing" of Forsaken also let's someone get to play multiple archetypes in one character-if someone wants to get witchy but also be a warrior, they've got the choices between the Ithaeur Blood Talon or Rahu Bone Shadow. Your motivation mostly comes from the unified Forsaken goals and collected interests, and Renown and sacred prey helps to round it out.

With what Justin's been trying to communicate, one assumes it's closer to how Awakening describes the relationship between x-splat and y-splat, with your Tribe being your motivation and battlefront with the Wyrm and your Auspice being how your modus operandi with that war and battlefront, but instead of having coherence, his phrasing makes it sound like a sentence filled with verbs, which is weird.

And the main reason that's worrisome is that it implies that people working on this might have different ideas of how the pieces come together, and can lead to confusing writeups that actually make it harder to figure out a character concept than it needs to be(if writers both understand they're writing verbs, you run the risk of players knowing how they handle problems, but not what problems they're actually solving or why)-and while that's a small thing in and of itself, it's another brick in the wall of a pretty shoddy rollout of a presentation for WtA5E.

*really, really, really reducitve.

[Asmodai]

Part of the re-imagination is that the fifth form is now called "Canis" XD...

Considering the language Justin used to use about Werewolves, I don't think he sees much of a difference anyway.

As much as I agree, WoD is STILL set in mostly our world. Unless the dog of WoD5 are HUGE or the wolves tiny, this just reads like a bad case of research failure. Which, given just how on point WtA has been about wolves, is a downgrade.

That's hillarious considering some of the farkups they did. At least they tried to fix it later on. But there's whole games to crib from these days! (letalone google!)

[Knightingale]

Yeah, the verbs in the new blog make the problems with the previous one worse.

Also... there are other evocative parts of speech. If you use verbs for one, you can use nouns for the other. Mix-and-match verb-noun combos between the two picks also helps reinforce the idea that 11 Tribe x 5 Auspices is far more than 55 options.

Or at least adverbs, which might not be as clean linguistically, but at least help the idea of how Justin wants Tribe and Auspice to relate. "Lead Evenly," v. "Lead Avidly," plays into the idea of what you do, and how you do it, better than adding more verbs to a list.

I mean, when Justin Achilli made that tweet months ago about how "Tribes is what you, Auspice is how you do it. The verbs are important.", I didn't think he literally meant he would use only verbs for this association-game. I also imagined something like you describe there. And it also reminded me of the Cypher-System like with Numenera where it's (adjective - character-descriptor) + (noun - character-class) + (phrase - specialization/special power) which results in sentences like "My character is a vengeful warrior that strikes with the might of giants." or something like that. There I can see how grammar is used as an allegory for the character-creation-process.

[ArcaneArts]

https://twitter.com/jachilli/status/1584959020040798208

So, yeah, garou without auspice.

I hate to be so harsh, but boy does that play foul on the metaphysics. The reason the Uratha auspice can be removed is that Luna in that game is not a neutral party offering aid/reflecting Gaia's anger. She is a powerful spirit like any other and her gifts are gifts of agreement. The Pure can wash that away, because auspice is not such an important part of being a werewolf.

But in WtA, auspice is something you have at birth and is part of being a garou as much as your breed is. Luna is a major deity to the garou and the universe, far more powerful than the Forsaken Luna.

The copying of WtF is getting rather silly,ngl.

A minor correction: with clarification from The Sundered World ala Dark Eras* as well as the Second Edition core, Auspices in Forsaken are absolutely part and parcel of the werewolf being, and have to be ritually ripped away from (not washed away) if a werewolf wants to escape the influence of Luna, for all the good that it does them (exacerbating weaknesses in the Uratha condition rather than minimizing them). The Pure cutting out their Auspice is more akin to chopping off a hand.

That said, yeah, it doesn't make sense in the alliances and metaphysics of Apocalypse. Forsaken's Moon is a lot more sus than Apocalypse's Luna.

*[pushes her glasses up her nose and says nasally] Actually, as everyone knows-sorry, I couldn't get over how nerdy my own address is here.