W5 auspices and forms

[TyrannicalRabbit]

Yes to be clear most of the claims that new nuance is being injected feel a bit fake. Pentex was already shadowy and complex. Werewolves were already conflicted and at odds with one another. If anything, from what we've seen so far, a lot of nuance and depth is being removed.

Yeah, I almost hate to beat the drum on this but a lot of things that Outstar, Paradox, and the hardcore 5e media heads touts as new and innovative in 5e often ends up being something already in the games and/or especially something Revised already took a look at in contrast to 2e. It reminds me of video game awards and cons where some corporate talking head walks out and starts talking corporatese about this exciting new feature that you totally never saw before in their upcoming game........is just a slightly tuned variation of something you've seen in plenty of games before.

[TwoDSix]

Bah, the breeding mechanics were in Requiem. Plus if done right can be a great source of horror.

I never had a major problem with kinfolk, they're why the Garou are so isolated. If I wanted to rewrite them to be in a better position I'd give the lot of them Gnosis 1 and access to their Tribe's rank one gifts, and then stress their importance in dealing with human society at large. They lack Rage, but they're still servants of Gaia and have always fulfilled a role the Garou struggle to. The fact that Garou look down on kinfolk so much and in some cases treat them as nothing more than breeding stock is part of why they're losing and something the PCs are supposed to take issue with. Encourage the PCs to have kinfolk Mentors and Allies, and use that to make them champion kinfolk.

Just getting rid of them eliminates a lot of story potential. Plus there will be no possibility to play a kinfolk who tags along with a pack due to having legitimately useful skills.

[11twiggins]

Yes to be clear most of the claims that new nuance is being injected feel a bit fake. Pentex was already shadowy and complex. Werewolves were already conflicted and at odds with one another. If anything, from what we've seen so far, a lot of nuance and depth is being removed.

In my current pack, 3/5 PCs have stories where much of the depth and nuance is based around what Jachilles would call "breeding elements" or "breeding mechanics", terms I hate with a passion.

The non-binary PB 5 Fianna who ran away from home because they were being pushed into arranged marriages, traditionalist dogma and a fundamentalist sept with bigoted ideas. Who has a Garou and Kinfolk parent, both of whom groomed them to be this perfect 'son' who would further their lineage. Who instead chooses to live as a punk, doing the opposite of everything their parents believed in, reveling in making friends with people their family would have considered scum.

The blind Metis who was raised by CoG Kinfolk in an environment of love and tolerance, whose adoptive parents wouldn't let a single negative word about any Metis' biological parents pass their lips. Who, in spite of Garou society's hatred of Metis, loves himself as much as his adoptive parents love him, and stands tall and proud, announcing his Breed with as much enthusiasm as his Auspice and Tribe.

The Homid scientist whose father was a Lupus Garou, who would check in every 1-2 years to make sure she was getting on okay. The visits got more and more sparse as he couldn't smell the wolf on her, and eventually he simply stopped visiting, having ultimately mistaken her for Kinfolk. She devotes herself to being an ideal warrior for Gaia as a Kinfolk, becoming a top ecologist, pushing for better understanding of the environment and reintroduction of species which were lost to certain countries, like eagles and wolves. And then as she's starting her PhD she has a late bloom and suddenly guess who is interested in her again? Ideal dad, father of the year, eager to check in and see how she's doing and strongly guide her towards joining his Tribe.

None of these stories seem to be possible in W5, where the angle they're going for is that Kin (who crop up randomly) just become Garou, without rhyme or reason. Stories about the potential for toxicity and love in Garou families, Kinfolk families, are deleted. Instead we get a weird X-Men type deal. And it seems less than ideal.

All that said, W5 will prove a gateway drug for people playing W20, just as V5 has led to a lot of people discovering V20.

[Knightingale]

Well the things that feel modern
The struggle of the garou with their capital Rage seems to have a new context,it's less of " I must control myself "and more of a "I need to reinvent myself* that feels 2022 to me,the whole reinvention of rage at the system
Pentex not being a evil corporation but an evil investment group that helps corporations do evil things ,it seems like such a small change but I find it modernizes it all.
Hauglosk,I love hauglosk because If you think about it,2022 is full of hauglosk,and its harming people.
The identity politics feel modern,people who grown up in the 2000's struggle for identity more immensely than anyone else ha ever done.

I mean, pretty much all of that was already present in one form or another in previous editions.

Your first point about Rage... I don't think that's what W5 is going for. Justin talked multiple times about how Garou in W5 are "volatile". So "I must control myself" is still very much a central tenet for Rage in W5.

Somebody already posted about this on here but Pentex and its subsidiaries were already a thing in previous editions. So that isn't new.

Haugslosk... I mean, there are so many events in the old lore that are "Rage is making Garou do dumb stuff.". It didn't have that name but that concept was also already there in previous editions.

The presentation was deeply flawed but the identity politics of the conflict between Western Garou Tribes and the Native American Tribes is identity politics as well. Colonialism, racism, privilege... You name it. And the modern day lives in the aftermath of the mistakes of the past. And Black Furies with their feminist perspective were right there from the start. Feminism is identity-politics, wouldn't you say? All W5 can bring to the table is to expand the perspective in the same way the idea of identity politics has expanded. But identity politics is also just another thing that already was part of WtA.

[Nicolas Milioni]

You will have to go into more detail on that point because my immediate answer to that is a "no, that's not the case". Environment, injustice, generational conflict, Garou-culture being flawed... That was all there from the beginning. I don't really see where anything from W5 is a "new modern spin". It's different in comparison to older editions, sure - but there's nothing new that is added here in terms of tropes. Like, the switch from how Kinfolk worked to how the new Kin work... That's just fluff. There's nothing distinctly modern about that.

Well the things that feel modern
The struggle of the garou with their capital Rage seems to have a new context,it's less of " I must control myself "and more of a "I need to reinvent myself* that feels 2022 to me,the whole reinvention of rage at the system
Pentex not being a evil corporation but an evil investment group that helps corporations do evil things ,it seems like such a small change but I find it modernizes it all.
Hauglosk,I love hauglosk because If you think about it,2022 is full of hauglosk,and its harming people.
The identity politics feel modern,people who grown up in the 2000's struggle for identity more immensely than anyone else ha ever done.

[Knightingale]

To heavy, te 2022 thing is mostly because the game seems to have a greater focus on struggles that are distinctly modern and that were much less common In 1993.

You will have to go into more detail on that point because my immediate answer to that is a "no, that's not the case". Environment, injustice, generational conflict, Garou-culture being flawed... That was all there from the beginning. I don't really see where anything from W5 is a "new modern spin". It's different in comparison to older editions, sure - but there's nothing new that is added here in terms of tropes. Like, the switch from how Kinfolk worked to how the new Kin work... That's just fluff. There's nothing distinctly modern about that.

[Nicolas Milioni]

To heavy, te 2022 thing is mostly because the game seems to have a greater focus on struggles that are distinctly modern and that were much less common In 1993.

[Nicolas Milioni]

My comment was entirely about his professional conduct and statements while acting in his role as Developer and Writer for White Wolf.

Also, I'm confident based on my interactions that he will be in no way affected or even remotely care about any anecdotes shared or any opinions I or others may have.

Or about your stalwart defence of everything he or other professionals have ever done or said.

You do have point. I can get a little.overly defensive. I'm still bitten about how the offensive nicknames people gave to Martin Ericsson,it deeply reminds me of high school bullying I went through.
I can get white knighty,I'm a passionate dude about people,my therapist and I are working on self improvement and learning when to speak up and when to not speak up

[TyrannicalRabbit]

The nature of the conflict 5e is presenting would feel more compelling to me if it felt it had depth, and nuance. Then I read the same approach of underwriting and undermining VtM since it's heyday, you get the whole "orgs" thing in Hunter and now WtA's whole generational divide because mumsy is dead or dying. It feels so surface level and written by committee in the sense of movie execs getting together on how they can "improve" a movie plot and the like. It really hit him for me with Hunter's whole, "No see you guys, you're the REAL hunters and all this organizations are old, tired and fake just doing it for a paycheck. " I picture in my head the point in which a paint by numbers Alan Smithee picture where everything must pause so that the audience can listen to some dry exposition explain to us what is going on. I don't know what this is, other than more of Paradox talking out both sides of its mouth when they say it's a return to 1e. I don't know what this is, it isn't WtA. It's a phase 4 cookie cutter Marvel movie coming off the Disney assembly line.

[MyWifeIsScary]

Except it doesn't do that. V5 doesn't strip bare traditional facades. It creates new ones. V5 gave itself a heavy dose of political romanticism: everything is split into dichotomies; The conservative Camarilla vs the liberal Anarchs, the conservative Church of set vs the liberal Ministry of Set, gurl-powa cults vs misogynists. Generation used to be something people would kill their parents for, now it's a trap; a short boost of power in exchange for increasingly insurmountable hunger issues. It is both a moral and long-term strategic error to diablerize: vampire politics are essentially equalized and fluid rather than set in a hierarchy of power and the thin bloods get their own special power because the equality demanded by social justice demands it. This is romanticism. VTM once encouraged you to be a monster and learn from it. Now it encourages you to stay in your comfort zone and not challenge anything beyond what the script wants you to challenge. I fully expect this woeful change of tone to undo Werewolf: the Apocalypse. We'll move from "challenge the elders and their dated ways that cause problems" to "challenge a few elders that have strayed off the path they're supposed to be on" mark my words.

[Heavy Arms]

I don't think, at least under Justin, the WoD is going to be actual satire. For lack of a better literary term, I find his approach to be a form of Brutalist design. The goal seems to be to strip out the extraneous to lay bare what is hidden by traditional facades, so you can see the subject for what was truly meant to be instead of what it was meant to look like. This goes along with his Twitter comment that they are no loner using the phrase "our word but darker," in the branding of the games.

If the WoD is being moved from satire to some form of literary brutalism, then it's treatment of the antagonists makes sense and, if executed correctly would remain on target as a leftist criticism of conservative institutions. Since brutalism is an extension of minimalism, the goal is to provoke deep thought through surface expressions. The simplisticity of the narrative is supposed to be a feature because it treats nuance as obfuscation from the intended statement of the piece.

Where the satire of the "legacy" games uses the world building and complex setting to provide context to the absurdities in conservative thinking those games sought to mock, Justin's design choices in V5 Sabbat, H5, and what we're seeing in W5 so far, all make more sense if the central point has shift from trying to mock their targets via they're comparisons to monsters being very on point, towards a criticism based on the flaws of the target of the criticism being too self evident to require that, and instead the criticism is more focused on highlighting what stops people from seeing/acting on the world as it is in its obviously flawed state.


Though, I do not think V5 Sabbat or H5 demonstrate a mastery of literary brutalism necessary to carry W5's messaging well.

[MyWifeIsScary]

Okay, I'm going to try to explain why I dislike most of these changes.

For me WoD is the left looking at and trying to understand the right. This is probably purest in HtR, and each gameline includes rage against the establishment to a greater or lesser extent, but the fact that Garou society is traditionalist to the extreme is to me the entire point.
.

I think this nails the entire thing.
The world of darkness has always been written by lefties. Midnight Siege had a few sections that read like Marx trying his hand at dark fantasy. But the WoD, being a satire, has always focused on the right of the political spectrum: The vampires are analogues for the elite, the werewolves are mostly ultra conservative and reactionary. Most Mages live in their little ivory towers... Vampires are a massive net negative on mortal society and werewolves are failures because they refuse to adapt more progressive ways of dealing with things. If you take the right-wing out of these groups, what are you satirizing? If you make them progressive groups and they're still failing to win, aren't you undermining progressive values? This tone-deaf "modernization" of VTM and WTA actually ends up supporting the perspective of the Right.

[Asmodai]

I share a lot of Heavy Arms's sentiments on the whole affair, and seem to have had a number of similar encounters with JA and his specific style. And while I'd love him NOT to be doing this to WtA, I don't hate him nor am I calling for a lynching. I am just disagreeing with his views and vision, and he's doing a great job of convincing me to spend money on older stuff and keep teaching new people about the old game.

What I would like to address is how reductive and sad this vision of Werewolf is. The tribes could have been great if they leaned into the Revised work of making them more influenced by local cultures and less monolithic. The insensitivity could have been fixed while still keeping the legendry alive and giving positive cultural representation across the board. The Umbra, the Realms and the Spiritual interactions and the whole study of Faith as practical Truth was a fascinating facet of the game, one that provoked conflict and story and allowed you to lean into the narrative tropes in a game all about great tales of heroes. (and before someone walks into this with a superhero interpretation of the word, I mean most strictly in the original sense of Greek myth)

But what pains me the most is that Werewolf is a game about making amends, living up to your promise and trying to make a change even if it kills you. And it does it in a way where it says "sure, the world is messed up and we're probably going to fail... but we're sure as hell gonna give our lives trying". A lot of Revised was just about that - Garou stepping up and making amends and trying to make a change. This is a way more positive message than the whole "Jealously guard your last keepsake before it all goes away and hate everyone that came before you"

[Damian May]

I feel like talking about Justin's,or any other writer's, personal life is not a very nice thing to do

My comment was entirely about his professional conduct and statements while acting in his role as Developer and Writer for White Wolf.

Also, I'm confident based on my interactions that he will be in no way affected or even remotely care about any anecdotes shared or any opinions I or others may have.

Or about your stalwart defence of everything he or other professionals have ever done or said.

[Heavy Arms]

só my opinion for liking the changes is that the things I like are still here,the five forms, the spirits,the Umbra,gifts, those things are the core of the game for me and im happy paradox agrees with me on that.

So here's one of the thing I mean about "meat on the bones." None of this was ever really in question of changing (maybe the five forms because of the video game not using two, but that didn't last long). The broad strokes stuff like this was a given, it's the implementation of it all that's giving many of us pause.

Esp. with the information in the just created W5 QA thread, how are you feeling about the changes being made to how the Garou relate to the spirits and the Umbra; esp. considering things like TwoDSix's point about there already being Forsaken 2e to play that hits many of the same notes?

And thhere's so many needeed changes being made,I love the modenization that if feels like a game made in 2022,not a game made in 1993

Can you be more specific? What about the general information on the game so far, or this preview in particular, expresses this for you?

II love the art previews ,the art shown so far speaks to my aesthetic sense.

First off? Yeah the art (not the glyphs so much) so far is certainly on point. Even the new form-comparison chart is actually really well done (though it makes Hispo and Lupus forms small in a way I've expressed issue with, that's not on the visually impressive handling of the information).

The problem is... the art for H5 was also top tier, but in the end suffered the same problem HtR 1e had: it told a completely different story from what the game was actually about. What little W5 art we've seen is pretty vague, and I'm not sure what inspires confidence that we're not going to see a repeat of great art, but telling the story of a different game.

IDK. Even the long-awaited political correction of tribe names is a stinker.

In order to make the mod's lives easier, lets not rehash stuff from the locked thread? I think we can make the points we want to make by talking about either general trends in the W5 previews, or the specifics of the Auspice/Forms preview, without going back to this stuff.