LogFAQs > #899183238

Zeus posted...

That said, I didn't have an inherent problem with the general eco-warrior premise, although I can't remember if the origin of wolves was specifically tied into a nature standpoint which justified their attitudes. I just recall that their enemies had some entropic worldview and something to do with pollution.

The entire premise of the game is that you're literally the creation of Mother Earth sent forth to be her divine warriors in the world, but the world is absolute shit because your ancestors kind of fucked up their jobs. The Weaver (the force of Order) has gone insane, and bound the Wyrm (the force of Balance) in its web, so now the Wyrm is also crazy, and has become the avatar of destruction and corruption (the "pollution" part you mentioned being just one of the Wyrm's many, many consequences in the world). As Garou, you're expected to help protect the Wyld (the force of growth, change, nature, and everything else hippie), which usually boils down to blowing up corporations and fighting toxic-waste monsters and demon spirits. So much so that they basically took a term for highly destructive real world eco-terrorism (monkeywrenching) and made it a respected sub-faction within the Garou Nation. And, of course, humans are the root of everything bad, ever, and nature is noble and pure and special and fuck anyone who thinks otherwise.

Werewolf: the Apocalypse is basically what you get when a furry masturbates to an episode of Captain Planet and suddenly has a great idea for an RPG.

Again, this got toned down somewhat in the later editions, but it was still the core premise of the game, and how nearly everyone plays the game. Well, unless you played it online. In that case, nearly everyone played it like a soap opera with uncomfortable 50 Shades-flavored c-sexing with the Kinfolk.

Games like Vampire and Mage usually give the ST a lot of wiggle-room about how to run things, but the entire setting of Werewolf kind of forces you into a single sort of mindset, because doing almost anything other than fighting in a doomed war pretty much makes you a traitor to your people and a failure in your role.



Zeus posted...

And, of course, I was a fuckload heavier on the eco-friendly hippie shit back then. What can I say, it was the 90s.

That might be part of why I was so down on it at the time. I was already old enough to be pissed off about that sort of ideology, but still young enough to not be the burned out and broken curmudgeon I am today.

Back then my cynicism burned pretty hot. Now it's more of a cold smolder.

Then-Me hated the game with a passion. Now-Me would probably just look at it, shrug, go "Bleh, SJW the Game - no thanks", and then move on and never give it a second thought.

Though the other reason Then-Me might have been more turned off by it was also because I knew way too many people who wanted to play it, mainly because they liked the idea of being able to turn into 12-foot tall killing machines and punching all their problems to death. Games like Vampire and Mage actually required thinking, and were less "murder everything" in scope.



Zeus posted...

(that'd be a novel -- yes, I was a masochist)

I never read the Werewolf novels, though I did buy the original Vampire and Mage anthologies (The Beast Within and Truth Until Paradox, respectively), and then later I got all of the Vampire Clan Novels (I also managed to track down and buy some of the Vampire comics when they came out with those, though they were a bit hard to find at the time).

Some of their books (especially the later ones) were well written. Others, not so much.


---

"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family