Wolf-Blooded losing tells (at least if awakening)

[lbeaumanior]

Greetings,

It seems that Wolf-Blooded no longer keep their tell while awakening, Signs of Sorcery p.129 states that:

...some games model characters that might Awaken with
templates and unique mechanics, while other games
use Merits to represent near-human beings that certainly
won’t. Hunters with Endowments representing
equipment, for example, could Awaken, while ghouls
could not. Wolf-blooded can (though they lose their
Wolf-Blooded Merits and tells when Awakening),
while Stigmatics cannot.


And Dave B himself tells it as it is:

This will not be changing.

edit: to clarify, it's on the level of... Hypothetical example. If a book from a different line had casually mentioned "Traditions" or "coincidental magic" in the background of a character, it wouldn't be an erratum for a mage book. It'd just be a mistake.

The character's background in Splintered City is a mistake.

So it seems that at least awakening removes tells... Will other gamelines remove what wolf-blooded had for them too? It would be amazing if Acrozatarim could help with his input in this.

[Michael]

To be honest, saying that Wolf-blooded can Awaken at all seems to be the real mistake. I think the rules set out in SoS would pretty clearly disqualify wolf-blooded if not for the side-bar.

[nofather]

So it seems that at least awakening removes tells... Will other gamelines remove what wolf-blooded had for them too? It would be amazing if Acrozatarim could help with his input in this.

Seems kind of not classy to try to get devs to argue about it. Mage has its say in Signs of Sorcery, Werewolf had its in core. Just like before it's going to be Storyteller choice.

[Bunyip]

It’s not a big deal. Individual STs will run with whatever best suits their games. If they want awakened WB to have tells they can, if they don’t they’ve got something in a book backing them up.

[Sith_Happens]

Thirded, though the part of me who likes how consistent the various gamelines usually are with each other where shared elements are concerned is still very annoyed at exceptions like this.

[Leliel]

To be honest, saying that Wolf-blooded can Awaken at all seems to be the real mistake. I think the rules set out in SoS would pretty clearly disqualify wolf-blooded if not for the side-bar.

If this particular internal logic was true, no Sleepwalker could Awaken, which the book itself says isn't true. No, not even Proximi, because they don't have the revelation factor. So I say the attempt to forbid Wolf-Bloods is an attempt to avoid template stacking.

A very clumsy one. Proximi retain their Curse and Blessings upon Awakening, last I checked. I say Wolf-Bloods are more or less Proximi themselves, so they keep their Tells unless they have a metamorphic Awakening that rejects their kinship to Uratha (which often happens, as the kind of Wolf-Blood who feels such dissatisfaction with their role they have the existential angst needed to Awaken often gets that way through mistreatment), but nothing breaks if a mage has subdermal armor made of fur. Might be a nice Yantra.

[Tessie]

Proximi retain their Curse and Blessings upon Awakening, last I checked.

"At the moment of revelation, a Proximus loses her Blessings and familial Curse, though the Sanctity of Merits rule still applies. At the Storyteller’s discretion, some or all of the Blessings removed by an Awakening may convert into Arcane Experiences instead of Merit dots."
- Mage 2e core, page 307.

[Michael]

If this particular internal logic was true, no Sleepwalker could Awaken, which the book itself says isn't true. No, not even Proximi, because they don't have the revelation factor. So I say the attempt to forbid Wolf-Bloods is an attempt to avoid template stacking.

Sorry, I wasn't being clear what rule I was referring to. I was meaning that they don't seem to meet the criteria of spiritual health (at least as the Watchtowers define it). At least to my reading, the Wolf-blooded aren't just a case of having a mild supernatural ability, their relationship to Luna or Wolf is a really fundamental part of them, that's the logic behind their Tells sticking around in the first place.

[lbeaumanior]

Seems kind of not classy to try to get devs to argue about it. Mage has its say in Signs of Sorcery, Werewolf had its in core. Just like before it's going to be Storyteller choice.

As another poster put it, I am annoyed at inconsistencies between gamelines. Who better than the writers to explain why? Also, Dave B worked on the WtF second edition book, this is not two different developers doing things on their own (I remember that from Palladium games and 3.5 D&D).

It is not an important issue, but it nags me.

[Tessie]

Wolf-Blooded keeping their Tells when becoming a major splat is a general rule. Wolf-Blooded losing their Tells when Awakening is a more specific rule (and a specific example at that).
Specific trumps general. This is how it is in all RPGs. We even see it within individual CofD books where, for example, the general rule "attacks are penalised by the opponent's Defense" is trumped by the more specific "attacks can be contested by rolling double your Defense in a Dodge roll". These two paraphrased statements are, in fact, contradictions, if neither is prioritised above the other.

If you want to go into actual inconsistencies, here's one for you: Different books differ on whether Goetia has Twilight Form as a Manifestation or not. That's a clear contradiction where neither source provides a more general or specific ruling than the other. (They presumably do have Twilight Form. The omission was likely an error when editing the copy-pasted ephemeral entity rules into Mage, not helped by Twilight Form being a Manifestation that is never treated as a Manifestation by absolutely anything. BPG is effectively an errata in this case.)

[ArcaneArts]

My only two cents on the subject is that the decision tracks with how I was professionally framing it in my mind. At my table, of course I'm all for WB or DB mages so long as I find it an actually interesting angle and not just a power grab, but I can't imagine a situation in writing a book where I wouldn't clear a Mage of pre-existing supernatural elements. The Awakening is a delcaration and claimancy of self, and that doesn't work so well when Luna or the G-M still have deep hooks in you.

[Malus]

Sorry, I wasn't being clear what rule I was referring to. I was meaning that they don't seem to meet the criteria of spiritual health (at least as the Watchtowers define it). At least to my reading, the Wolf-blooded aren't just a case of having a mild supernatural ability, their relationship to Luna or Wolf is a really fundamental part of them, that's the logic behind their Tells sticking around in the first place.

What do you mean, being a magnet to spirits, or literally fuck ugly is signs of a unhealthy soul? /s