Werewolf: the Apocalypse overview
Werewolf: the Apocalypse. (White Wolf, 1992 - 2004)Setting
The second of the original World of Darkness lines, W:tA is set in a "gothic punk" setting. To put it another way, it's a world identical to our own with added gloom, angst and supernatural creatures around every corner. The werewolves of the story are the 'heroes' of the World of Darkness, "garou" fighting to protect Gaia and to balance the triat of Weaver, Wyrm and Wyld. The main duty of Gaia's garou, especially in the early books, was to destroy minions of the Wyrm who had become corrupt and sought to destroy or corrupt everything. Their foes are both spirits, humans and hybrids. They face the minions of the wyrm with strength, courage (and hopefully clever tricks), especially the minions of Pentex an ubercorporation. They also face prejudice, arrogance and insanity within their own ranks.
The System
W:tA used the standard WoD system "1.0", later version "1.5" (Revised).
Antagonists
Heroes are largely defined by the enemies, and the enemies of the garou are some of the best - not least because so many were drawn by Ron Spencer. The most numerous but maybe most insubstantial antagonists are spirits. The spirit world included the Penumbra (the spirit mirror to our Earth), and then an extended spirit world into unknown places, and also other realms which had their own twisted laws. In the umbra you would find lots of minor spirits of all types, major spirits had enough personality to be personal antagonists right up to major incarnae and remote spirits who characters would rarely meet in person but whose influence would spread throughout the game. Spirits could also materialise in the physical world or possess mortals, thus providing lots of plot hooks. One of the points about Spirits was that their power-level could vary so much (and so could be pitched accordingly).
I mentioned that spirits could possess humans. If Banes - Wyrm spirits - possess a human permanently it becomes a Fomor (pl. Fomori). Fomori were fun in that they could gross you out but really... not scary. One uber-fomor might pose a threat to a weak werewolf, but generally they were the cannon fodder of the Wyrm. Of course, in numbers they can be a more serious threat, not to mention what they can do to normal humans (or kinfolk). Plus they are human-looking servants of the Wyrm who can go around doing Evil Things to the world.
Finally, there are the Black Spiral Dancers, inbred, Wyrm-worshipping corrupt garou. It is good to have the twisted mirrors of the PCs around.
Around these antagonists were Pentex, a megacorporation sworn to wholly serve the Wyrm and spread its influence. Typically it saps the moral or specifically corrupts its employees (and other associates), while flouting every safety regulation under the sun and shipping wyrm-contaminated goods to as many places as it can.
Other antagonists include vampires (also meant to be servants of the Wyrm), and Weaver spirits/drones largely introduced later in the series. That is not even including normal humans doing Bad Things, or kinfolk going renegade.
The heroes
"Furry tree huggers" is the typical description, although with 13 tribes of Gaia that is rather an over-simplification. 13 tribes, 5 auspices (spiritual roles) and 3 breeds creates a lot of variety. The tribes are a cross between ideological and regional groupings, with the assumption that tribes in the present are spread all over the globe. Garou require the mating of two kinfolk (or kinfolk and garou), with garou+garou leading to the cursed and deformed Metis breed - other garou are either wolf (lupus) or human (homid) born. During puberty they undergo their first change, able to turn into a 9' killing machine as well, human and wolf forms and two forms in between. They can cause the delirium in normal humans, originally described as a weapon, later retconned to be unreliable and Not Good. They also acquire Gifts and Rites (i.e. special powers) from Spirit allies. They also maintain places of power and spiritual purity called Caerns (typically the home of stories).
Later on, the mysterious other changing breeds were introduced as full-bodied factions, which proved very popular (people liked playing werecats especially, but the list also included werespiders, werebears and werelizards).
The Look
The artist that most people remember from W:tA is Ron Spencer. His iconic "hyper-real" figures were common features on full page spreads and front covers, often in vivid action. He also drew the defining combat between Lord Albrecht and Mari Cabrah that spanned many pages of the 2nd edition core book. Other frequent artists include Brian LeBlanc, Richard Kane Ferguson, William O'Connor and ... SCAR. SCAR is the most reviled Werewolf artist of all time; in Rage Across Australia the couple demonstrated an ability to draw grotesque Wyrm creatures, but even then they were unrelated to the text. SCAR were anomaly among a stable of artists who drew fleshy, intense creatures.
As well as individual artists, W:tA had a defined look for its werewolves, indeed a defined look for each tribe. There were also recurring characters who could be recognised without name tags (I mention this because this feature is lacking in W:tA's successor, Werewolf: the Forsaken).
The good stuff
Werewolf books are a really fun, exciting read, even bad books like Rage Across Australia. The books, like all WoD 1 books, were mostly written from the first person perspective (or at least an ambiguous, leading 3rd person), which imbued emotion and meaning to text as well as leaving ambiguity to which view was correct. It also gave a sense of a saga to the whole series (not including the handful of werewolf novels). There are huge numbers of potential for stories, and huge numbers of character concepts. It suits anyone who is spiritually inclined, or who is simply after a slaughterfest.
W:tA also lends itself to epic stories, stories of heroic actions against impossible odds, whether on a small scale, a worldwide scale or bigger yet - the biggest story of all, of course, being Apocalypse.
The bad stuff
I might be bitter because I have never run or played a werewolf game that really worked. It is made more bitter by the fact that I really love werewolf. I find it hard to balance the spiritual (which very few of players have really got), the brutal (which many players do get but which I constantly overlook) and the clever (which players overlook because they don't understand the world concepts).
Spiritually, the Wyld, Weaver and Wyrm thing (creator, fixer and corrupted destroyer) sounds really good but starts hurting when it is applied to real life (are burgers of the Wyrm because of the process that creates them? of the Weaver?); it is dangerous as demonstrated in Rage Across Australia where all the Bad Things that the invaders did were attributed to the Wyrm, while environmental projects are largely laid at the feet of good garou. And of course the reality is that most things in this life can be put at some combination of all three, and created by neither. Certainly, the common gift Sense Wyrm is really crazy since just about anything destructive or corrupt could be viewed as Wyrmish.
Practically, the system is unbalanced. There are all sorts of problems with the various incarnations of the White Wolf D10 system, but one of the biggest is in its use (which I have moaned about for years). Most specifically, that Dexterity is used for just about everything which makes the garou's +4 Strength bonus almost useless. Garou are also clearly outclassed by any vampire with some Celerity and a high level discipline. The spirit rules... well spirits burn their hit points to do everything, which pretty much meant that they couldn't do very much unless they were incredibly big. Forsaken handled spirits much better (hindsight is everything!). You also had the problem, inherent through many White Wolf lines, that concepts that were written in text as important were mechanically not that important: in this case Caerns. As a source of Gnosis (spiritual energy) they are poor, they aren't needed to access the spirit world, and yet they are meant to be the biggest prizes (again Forsaken fixed this well). Rage is a similar problem as the various books are somewhat confused as to the effects of low rage (thematically garou cannot live normal lives because even those with low rage may frenzy after a bad day... yet mechanically it is impossible for them to frenzy); Rage also is lost incredibly quickly which is odd for a key weapon in their arsenal.
There is also a problem with the assumptions made: it is assumed that players care about the concepts surrounding werewolf. Even if the characters don't particularly care, there is story in the juxtaposition between what the characters *should* care about and what they actually do. If the players don't care, the game falls flat on its face. These include the sanctity of Gaia, the value of Caerns, the battle against the Wyrm/Weaver, the need to respect spirits, the respect of elders. Most noticeably, there is an assumption that all garou after the first change feel instinctively that the corrupt wyrm is bad, a sense of territorialism and the need to be in a pack: but these are not described AT ALL anywhere in any book. In fact, they were only described with the release of Forsaken.
The final assumption was that most garou lived in the country. Considering that most players I have come across not only live in a city but want to roleplay in a city, this was a big flaw in the game. This is one assumption carried through from the beginning right until they produced Book of the City near the end of the line, while other Amercicocentric ideas were gradually eliminated. While Book of the City helped a lot, this flaw made a lot of the source material impractical.
The Ugly
Werewolf changed considerably from the first edition to the final book, Apocalypse. The first books approached the triat and the Umbra very simplistically while later on they became richer subjects. Similar depth was added to the various tribes, with the revised tribebooks almost going out of their way to break down the stereotypes portrayed in 1st edition tribebooks and other works. Ironically, by making better written books, the game line started becoming more knowing. By revised, all the mistakes the garou had made were plain to see and all the changing breeds who had started off so mysterious and as virtual enemies became the gang around the corner (each with their own detailed breedbook explaining how the garou messed up). A good example is how the Weaver is portrayed, at the end, almost as an equal threat (if not worse) as the Wyrm. In a sense, the arrogance of the earlier books was shown up.
Another 'ugly' is that first change was meant to happen in puberty. While it might make a good story, it doesn't make for good roleplaying opportunities (my experience is that werewolf players tend to be older than, say, D&D players and have normally left puberty far behind them). It is fairly easy to change, but too many little changes confuse players.
Not quite a 'bad' are the problems with the tribes and the auspices. Theurges are notoriously overpowered (give them Rite of the Fetish and they can do just about anything), while nobody knows what the purpose of Galliards are in the modern pack. The tribes are fun but suffer from having the cross of national- and role-based themes.
Summary
I really like werewolf. And I still love reading W:tA books - even the bad ones are exciting to read. I think the problems with W:tA come from players not really understanding and/or getting behind the themes of the game, combined with some frailties behind the seemingly robust spiritual front. Unfortunately, that makes it a good game for only certain groups of players. But get the right ST with the right players and you have storytelling magic.