W5 QA

[Ragged Robin]

I just don't recognize how W5 might look like. It's so unbelivable how it might be far from the game I know that's just making me confused and sad. I hardly swallowed WtF and new werewolf might be too much for me.

It isn't effectively the same game, its probably closer to the dynamic of the two battlestars. It'd probably be wiser to access it by its own merits, which is itself a tricky prospect because wod5 tends to be intrinsically reductive rather than expansive which aside from being an risky way to run major franchises is going to constantly draw harsh comparison with previous editions despite author intent.

[TyrannicalRabbit]

I don't think so far that W5 looks encouraging, but I don't find that a reason to off hand bad mouth WtF by making poor comparisons.

[Ana Mizuki]

I don't think so far that W5 looks encouraging, but I don't find that a reason to off hand bad mouth WtF by making poor comparisons.

I don't think anyone has bad mouthed Forsaken here. If you mean my rant about Gauru, that is just my experience from various games.

Also, it is very hard not to bring up Forsaken in comparison, given how much keeps getting stolen from it to W5. VERY clumsily.

For example, there is a minor issue in the kickstarter for Retaliation as the game has WtA style klaives. Yet, despite the weapon design not changing a bit, these are presented as weapons for the homid form and not the crinos. This is not how Forsaken does it, the klaives are very much made for hishu and dalu, gauru has its own abilities.

[Knightingale]

For example, there is a minor issue in the kickstarter for Retaliation as the game has WtA style klaives. Yet, despite the weapon design not changing a bit, these are presented as weapons for the homid form and not the crinos. This is not how Forsaken does it, the klaives are very much made for hishu and dalu, gauru has its own abilities.

I've listened to a podcast with the developers for the boardgame and the situation they've described doesn't sound great. The game's supposed to be compliant with W5 but since the W5 corebook is still deep in development they don't know all the details of what W5 will end up looking like. But with the development-schedule they needed to have as a small boardgame-company they couldn't just wait till W5 has come out. And so them being the old WtA-fans that they are, from how they talked on the podcast there really seems to be a lot of old WtA in the game despite this technically being tied to W5.

[CTPhipps]

We don't allow ableist speech on this forum.

[TyrannicalRabbit]

I don't think anyone has bad mouthed Forsaken here. If you mean my rant about Gauru, that is just my experience from various games.

Also, it is very hard not to bring up Forsaken in comparison, given how much keeps getting stolen from it to W5. VERY clumsily.

For example, there is a minor issue in the kickstarter for Retaliation as the game has WtA style klaives. Yet, despite the weapon design not changing a bit, these are presented as weapons for the homid form and not the crinos. This is not how Forsaken does it, the klaives are very much made for hishu and dalu, gauru has its own abilities.

Scrolling past multiple comments doing just that is literally why I replied. And it's a lot easier in fact for people to not make pointless pejorative comparisons like that it's "depowered" which is laughable given 2e's existence or talking about it's perceived scope compared to WtA in a disingenuous way. W5 is more than capable of being measured by what IT is rather than tearing down someone else's hard work in another setting to do so.

[Ana Mizuki]

Scrolling past multiple comments doing just that is literally why I replied. And it's a lot easier in fact for people to not make pointless pejorative comparisons like that it's "depowered" which is laughable given 2e's existence or talking about it's perceived scope compared to WtA in a disingenuous way. W5 is more than capable of being measured by what IT is rather than tearing down someone else's hard work in another setting to do so.

This is just my opinion, but I feel the biggest problem with W5 is that it isn't capable of standing on its own. For all the mistakes the game has, the context that it has also heavily cannibalized Forsaken is very much needed. Because it shows that W5 is not making its own unique thing, it is taking a lot of the framework from Forsaken but not bothering to properly apply it. Where it doesn't copy Forsaken, it bows on the altar of 'personal' and 'street level' without truly understanding either.

There are many ways W5 could have gone that did not include Forsaken copying. That it chose to do so is important context to why it doesn't work.

[TyrannicalRabbit]

This is just my opinion, but I feel the biggest problem with W5 is that it isn't capable of standing on its own. For all the mistakes the game has, the context that it has also heavily cannibalized Forsaken is very much needed. Because it shows that W5 is not making its own unique thing, it is taking a lot of the framework from Forsaken but not bothering to properly apply it. Where it doesn't copy Forsaken, it bows on the altar of 'personal' and 'street level' without truly understanding either.

There are many ways W5 could have gone that did not include Forsaken copying. That it chose to do so is important context to why it doesn't work.

Beyond that I don't want to repeat my skepticism over the "but it's copying Forsaken!" because I find that argument relatively flimsy and have talked about it elsewhere. That is a lot of stretching to say that somehow, we just got to bring up Forsaken and I am not buying it.

[Ana Mizuki]

Beyond that I don't want to repeat my skepticism over the "but it's copying Forsaken!" because I find that argument relatively flimsy and have talked about it elsewhere. That is a lot of stretching to say that somehow, we just got to bring up Forsaken and I am not buying it.

People keep bringing up Forsaken, because it is very clear these elements are taken from it. If you look at the threads about By Night Studios' version of WtA, there is far less mention of Forsaken in them, because that book did its own thing.

People are also comparing things to Forsaken, because a lot of these elements are not something found in general werewolf media but are found in Forsaken and made it therefore very different from WtA. Plus the main writer had a role in early NWoD, which very much included Forsaken. And I feel when people are bringing up Forsaken, they are bringing up Forsaken 1st ed. At least I am.

Plus, at this point, it is not simply a few things taken, it is a -lot.- We are no longer just talking about a hostile umbra, we are talking about the renown system replacing rank, the first change deciding the auspice, the garou being born randomly from humanity, auspice being something you can remove, the war form being unable to use any weapons, the focus being on territory rather than global, the tribes being broad ideas rather than specific cultures and there being a hostile but not corrupted tribe.


If it was one or two, it might be acceptable borrowing. W20 did that and no one minded it. But when it is that much and specifically things that were used to make Forsaken 1st ed different from WtA revised? It is getting hard to ignore the similarities.


This isn't even about Forsaken's quality, just that Forsaken is NOT WtA and WtA is NOT Forsaken. There are many people here who like both games, as well.

[BadFurryFanFic]

I don't think so far that W5 looks encouraging, but I don't find that a reason to off hand bad mouth WtF by making poor comparisons.

I hope my comments haven't been taken as being negative about WtF, its a great game. Its just that because WtF werewolves are Hunters rather than Warriors their ' War-Form' is much more limited in scope and is essentially a grenade that is used when everything has gone to shit and that makes perfect sense for that game. Likewise WtF is very focused on protecting ones territory so it makes perfect sense for werewolves in WtF to concentrate on protecting their local areas only and with packs containing humans, wolfblooded and Uratha working together their packs are much more likely to be involved in ' human-level' interactions with forces attempting to influence their locale.

And this is the kind of round peg that W5 seems to be trying to force into the square hole of WtA. WtF and WtA are amazing games and both are lessened by trying to force themes and concepts of one into the other....though given how PI seem to be choking out WtF with not allowing releases at the moment we may sadly be saying goodbye to it soon....

[Shakanaka]

To be honest, these Parawolf writers should just be making CofD games and let oWoD die peacefully. W5 is going to be horrible and M5 is going to be a nuclear wasteland.

[ArcaneArts]

To be honest, these Parawolf writers should just be making CofD games and let oWoD die peacefully. W5 is going to be horrible and M5 is going to be a nuclear wasteland.

While I don't want to throw out new World game editions out in favor of getting back into the business making Chronicles games, I do have to wonder if there's going to be any sort of address to the increasingly clear dissatisfaction with the direction. Paradox Wolf is not going to particularly care rewarding the Chronicles crowd-that's not what they're in the business for and that's not what's going to make their money back, unless they REALLY year-of-our-lord-2004-style committed to Chronicles (Which-why would you)-but I think there's been enough response to Apocalypse 5E that you have to imagine some of the higher-ups have to asking "So, do we really wanna gamble on the ship not sinking here?"

Probably too actually early for that, but if you're going to pull back on a product and try to do something about, early is a better time to bite the bullet than later.

[AnubisXy]

Beyond that I don't want to repeat my skepticism over the "but it's copying Forsaken!" because I find that argument relatively flimsy and have talked about it elsewhere. That is a lot of stretching to say that somehow, we just got to bring up Forsaken and I am not buying it.

When people are seeing the mechanic and world changes in W5, there's quite a bit of stuff that seems very familiar to people who are familiar with Forsaken. "Oh, hey, that element wasn't in Apocalypse, but it did exist in Forsaken," isn't something people are just pulling out of their butts.

Now, whether it's a matter of "copying" I guess that depends on the definition people are using, but it doesn't seem like much of a stretch for people to feel that some of the new elements in W5 were heavily inspired by Forsaken and for people to get a sense of deja vu when they see them.

[AkatsukiLeader13]

Of course, I'm speculating here but from what we know so far, what I imagine when I envision the kind of game Justin wants it's a game about activists with very human lives. Be it the environment, social justice, going against the state - your characters have an interest in dealing with those issues. And those problems have an ally in the form of the Wyrm and so there are supernatural forces attached to them that the werewolves have to deal with. But while your character is getting angry and is fuelled by their Rage to do something, they have to make sure they stay human.

And everything else is pushed to the side: Garou-culture. Bad. Garou-Nation. Bad. Being a warrior. Bad. Being rich. Bad. Trying to save the world. Bad. Just as important as making sure you play the game Justin envisions, it'll also put in an effort to lecture you on why you shouldn't deviate from that vision.

Frankly if I was sitting at a table with the ST enforcing that rigid vision of WtA, I'd leave the table and never look back. It's not a good look when that's the default of W5.

I've listened to a podcast with the developers for the boardgame and the situation they've described doesn't sound great. The game's supposed to be compliant with W5 but since the W5 corebook is still deep in development they don't know all the details of what W5 will end up looking like. But with the development-schedule they needed to have as a small boardgame-company they couldn't just wait till W5 has come out. And so them being the old WtA-fans that they are, from how they talked on the podcast there really seems to be a lot of old WtA in the game despite this technically being tied to W5.

Honestly I feel bad for them. I backed their VTM game and when they first announced their WtA, I figured I'd back it too but with everything that's come out about W5 it's killed a lot of my interest in it. And I imagine I'm not alone in feeling that way.

To be honest, these Parawolf writers should just be making CofD games and let oWoD die peacefully. W5 is going to be horrible and M5 is going to be a nuclear wasteland.

Don't remind me. With everything that's happened with H5 and W5, I am utterly dreading M5. At this point I fully expect M5 to completely Orphan-centric with all the organized Mage groups being different kinds of assholes. The Technocracy will be WORSE than they were ever depicted in any edition. Complete mask-off Alt-Right Techno-fascists that are killing Wonder and hell bent on creating every Sci-fi/Cyberpunk Dystopia on Earth. The Traditions will be a bunch of fanatical Reality Terrorists that have lost and know they've lost to the Technocracy and now just want to burn everything the Technocracy has built, the fate of the Sleepers be damned. The Crafts/Disparate Alliance are cowards unworthy of their Magic for refusing to fight in the Ascension War.

And the in process make the Nephandi's notion that the world is irredeemably corrupt and it's better to just burn it all down so a new world can be born from the ashes the right idea. Which is really bad thing when you make the one group of Mages that everyone can agree are the Bad Guys right.

Well if that actually was the Nephandi's goal and not BS which only makes it worse.

[Ana Mizuki]

To be honest, these Parawolf writers should just be making CofD games and let oWoD die peacefully. W5 is going to be horrible and M5 is going to be a nuclear wasteland.

I feel there are two reasons they do not do this;

1.) oWoD is the more publicly known and loved setting, with video games and a long history. CofD is less known, sometimes seen as a replacement still. I don't mean in the WoD fandom, I mean among outsiders.

2.) Those same people have not really engaged as much with editions and so might not know how different WoD5 is.

That is why I think Paradox won't address the issues people bring up, either. Casual players won't notice things that we do. THOUGH, with W5 being like it is, it might be enough of an uproar.