[Hailen]

Hey all,

I'm going to be running a Werewolf LARP pretty soon. Does anyone have any ideas about how to make it really wow people and work? It seems like LARPing = Vampire for most people...

[Dolston]

Hey all,

I'm going to be running a Werewolf LARP pretty soon. Does anyone have any ideas about how to make it really wow people and work? It seems like LARPing = Vampire for most people...

Strider should have some good advice but LARPing = Vampire for most because, as written, Vampire is the game best suited for the live action environment. Doesn't mean you can't LARP WtF but it has its own unique challenges.

[Hailen]

I would agree that Vampire is the easiest to LARP. It's the most political and the most bloodthirsty.

[strider1276]

Well, I don't have a lot of time at the moment, and I'm half-asleep, but I'll see what brain-ramblings I can impart to you, young Padawan.

Okay...first, yes, Vampire is the most LARP-friendly game there is, hands down. And really, making Werewolf feel like Vampire really cheapens it, at least in my opinion. So, you'll want to avoid any kind of political scenes, really - besides, Werewolf doesn't really have politics, per se - just pack dynamics (which are political in a sense, but I don't feel that they are analogous to Vampire-like politics).

Here's what I would suggest you keep in mind (I will talk in broad generalities here, because I know nothing of your local area, player demograpic/population, etc.).

1. Do your research. Where are you setting the game, ICly? Is it in your hometown, a different location, or a location that you are creating from whole cloth? Regardless of which of these you are using, be sure to always keep in mind the Hisil. While *things* are sometime important, *ideas* and *concepts* always are - and usually bear more strength in the Shadow. This does not mean that spirits of the Conceptual or Ideological Choirs are necessarily stronger, but that the perception of a particular area will shape its reflection in the Shadow much more heavily than the reality of the situation. Make sure you research this angle, and insert it into your game - books on Urban Legends, or Folklore (or similar topics) should be helpful in this regard.

2. The Mortal side. Werewolf, in my opinion, has two distinct sides to it. The first is the spirit side (mentioned above), but never forget the mortal side that the PC's used to be part of. That's an important part of the feeling of loss in the game - that the PC's have *left* the mortal world, metaphysically speaking, and it is downright dangerous for them to remain in it. Sure, some individuals manage to eke out something, but by and large, a werewolf's temper (at the least) and Primal Urge combine to ensure that at some point, someone close to them is going to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Think of it this way - you have a family, I'm assuming. Pick any family member - they likely have done something that annoyed the hell out of you - perhaps even made you downright mad. Now, back that up with a feeling of near-constant feeling of anger that threatens to burst loose and lash out at anyone around you. Then, take a situation with that loved one that annoyed you, and imagine that you overreacted far beyond something "reasonable", and did something to injure that person - maybe you slam them into a wall and cut their head open, or you break their arm. Now - imagine that the person you hurt is your small child - perhaps 3 or 4 years old. Imagine the look in their eyes every time they look at you - the unadulterated love of a child mostly gone - now tinged with a fear that you'll hurt them again. And, make no mistake about it - you will. Again, and again, and again, unless you either find a way to keep that angry beast on a leash, or you leave.

Not every interaction with mortals ends this way - not even most of them. But enough of them do that for an Uratha to maintain a semblance of a "normal" life is typically just too difficult.

3. Spirit interactions. Remember a few things about spirits in general, and you should be fine. First - spirits act like their nature, period. They may deviate slightly from their nature, but not by much. Secondly - no spirit, no matter how weak, does anything for free. Now, that doesn't mean that the Uratha just "hand over" a few points' worth of Essence every time they need a spirit to do something. Perhaps a spirit requests a task of the Uratha (ready-made plot hook, there!), or wants them to do something against a rival spirit or spirit court. (Side note: the real politics in Forsaken, IMO, are in the Spirit Courts)


Those are the big things in a large, overarching sense that I can think of right now. If you need more specific things, let me know what they are, and I'll try to target some advise that way, k?

Regards,

[Dolston]

Thanks Jim. You are the W:tF Man!

[strider1276]

Thanks Jim. You are the W:tF Man!

Eh, I try.

The real proof will be how helpful that rambling was/is to the OP. If not, I hope to get more specific information on what he needs, then I'll fine-tune my responses that way.

Regards,

[Hailen]

Strider - Thanks! That's some really great advice for a beginning ST. However, I think I need more help with the practical side of things. What the heck do I have them do?

Take Vamp for example. You just have everyone show up to court. The social characters will snipe at each other and work backroom deals, the more active characters will chase down things on the social characters orders or get involved with ST plot.

Now take 5-6 Werewolf players. What do you do with them so that it isn't always a "let's hunt down the big bad" game?

Thanks!

[zenten]

Um, why are you only having 5-6 players?

[Hailen]

No particular reason. That's just who is interested at the moment. I imagine we will have 10-15 within a few weeks/months.

[strider1276]

Strider - Thanks! That's some really great advice for a beginning ST. However, I think I need more help with the practical side of things. What the heck do I have them do?

Take Vamp for example. You just have everyone show up to court. The social characters will snipe at each other and work backroom deals, the more active characters will chase down things on the social characters orders or get involved with ST plot.

Now take 5-6 Werewolf players. What do you do with them so that it isn't always a "let's hunt down the big bad" game?

Thanks!

No worries - Werewolf is, by far, my favorite game, and I'm always happy to help out!

Now...5-6 players...hmm... Well, I'll assume that they will all be in the same pack, so the first few stories you could run could involve them forming the pack, hunting down a potential totem/convincing it to act in that capacity, and finding and claiming a territory. Then you could focus on a lot of territory-like stuff - what people are in the territory, what the spirit world looks like, what spirits are there, are there Loci, that sort of thing. I'd highly advise the book Territories - it has quite a few good ideas in it, I think.

That said - what books (and therefore, resources) do you have for Werewolf?

Regards,

[Hailen]

Among the group I would say we have almost everything. With a new pack in a city that is largely unclaimed, I have about a million stories I could run. I think that Territories is great and it's got a lot of great ideas.

However, my question more focuses on the practical ST side of things. Given that Vampire practically runs itself as a LARP (with the backstabbing and the politics), how can one work a successful Werewolf LARP? Is it possible for it to be as Player driven? How is Werewolf LARP better or different than Tabletop?

[strider1276]

Among the group I would say we have almost everything. With a new pack in a city that is largely unclaimed, I have about a million stories I could run. I think that Territories is great and it's got a lot of great ideas.

However, my question more focuses on the practical ST side of things. Given that Vampire practically runs itself as a LARP (with the backstabbing and the politics), how can one work a successful Werewolf LARP? Is it possible for it to be as Player driven? How is Werewolf LARP better or different than Tabletop?

It can absolutely be as player-driven - you just need, as in Vampire - some players that are proactive and will get out there and do things.

First of all, you have a new pack with no territory. What kind of totem do they have? Do they even have one yet? (That could be a great first story!) If they're all sorted out in that regard, the search for a territory is where I'd likely start. From there, you can include all sorts of information regarding the history of the area you are playing in, or hints of future adversaries (Azlu, Beshilu, whatever).

What you won't have in a typical Werewolf LARP is the backstabbing politics of Vampire - at least, not if you keep the idea that the politics must be on this side of the Gauntlet. Spirit Courts have their own (albeit alien) politics that they muster against one another, that your PC's could very well get involved in.

Really, I'd just say that, for now, run a game or two just using your instincts, and feedback from the players on what they want to see, and take it from there. All the advice in the world likely won't be as useful as direct contact and knowledge of your players. But I'll still try to answer whatever other questions you might have, if you want.

Regards,

[Hailen]

Heya!

Ran it last night and it went really well.

The PC's all got together because one of them noticed a girl who was about to experience her First Change. So they hunted her down and saved her from a couple of low level Pure. Short combat that resulted in them feeling like a pack!

Then they ran into a sole remaining member of another pack that had just gotten decimated while invading an Azlu stronghold. They are now looking to investigate...

[Dolston]

Nicely done!

[Hailen]

Thanks! I was really happy with it. We have a couple of strong players and I think they are going to add a lot to it. I'm going to try to get another pack going so that they can start competing, etc...

[strider1276]

Sounds great! Getting the players to really "get" that pack feeling is, IMO, essential, and it seems like a Mission Accomplished on your/their part.

Good job! I hope to hear more of how this game turns out.

[Hailen]

Well we won't play for a week or two, but I'm generally thinking that I will start throwing a couple of different conflicts at them. I want them to get the sense that being a Werewolf is about making choices. Not all of the choices are fair or good....

Any suggestions for difficult situations?

[strider1276]

Well we won't play for a week or two, but I'm generally thinking that I will start throwing a couple of different conflicts at them. I want them to get the sense that being a Werewolf is about making choices. Not all of the choices are fair or good....

Any suggestions for difficult situations?

There are so many innumerable "difficult situations" in the WoD/Werewolf, that I wouldn't even know where to begin. Do you mind if I give you an example from a game I ran? It was one of my staff that did this, but I thought it was so great, I'd love to share it (and I was mightily saddened when the players chose the "fetishes" option)


Okay, so I'm running the Forsaken game at EClipse (East Central Regional Event - it's a Cam thing), and part of the over-arching premise of the con was that there was a "nexus of evil" forming, and that folks from each venue could deal with portions of that nexus, fallout from it, etc. It actually worked out rather well in practice. We kept a "scorecard" of sorts on how powerful the Nexus got - generally "evil" acts by PC's strengthened the nexus, while altruistic or otherwise "good" acts weakened it.

So...we get to the last day of Forsaken (the scorecard was leaning to the "evil" side), and some of the players want to summon spirits to help them fight the Pure in the area. So one of my staff comes to me to find out what kind of spirits could be found. I told him that, generally "good" spirits could be found in droves, but only up to Rank 2 (Greater Gaffling). With the general mood of the area, the "evil" spirits (and I'm using these terms quite loosely, understand) were more predominantly powerful. So, if the PC's wanted some "big guns", they could find Jagglings (Rank 3 and 4) of various nasty sorts if they cared to use them. I likened the difference to a Magic: the Gathering analogy - either the PC's could use a "good" weenie deck, or they could use the "bad" big guns deck.

Of course, they wanted the big guns.

So, in the end, they got seven spirits to help them (actually eight, but one was through another source, and was a Rank 5 Envy spirit anyway....that's a different story) - these seven spirits were each aspected to each of the Vices. So the "Lust" spirit took the form of a snake - and gave the PC's a choice of chiminage.

Either the PC's could provide the spirit with a number of fetishes for it to drain (representing a "lust for power"), -or- they could have (ICly!) sex with one another, thus breaking the Oath of the Moon. I really wanted some Harmony draws, so I was hoping for the latter, but they ended up giving the spirit a small pile of fetishes anyway, so the scorecard, by the end of the Forsaken game - well, let's just say that the needle was firmly pegged on "E" (for "evil").

Why were these difficult situations? Well, the PC's didn't have to take the easy way out - even though they did opt that way. They could have relied more on their own confidence, and strength of flesh and sinew, rather than trying to get spirit allies that ended up feeding the nexus by their power increase. They could have even gotten spirit allies that weren't quite as powerful (but wouldn't feed the nexus), and probably still prevailed, albeit with more injuries/casualties. That's why it was a difficult situation for them.

And yes, the PC's were aware, at least in a general sense, that the area had a rather "dark" or "evil" mood and feel about it. They never did find out about the nexus itself directly, but they certainly knew that SOMETHING was going on that was bad.

Regards,

[Hailen]

That's good. I like the scorecard a lot. How did that get resolved in the big picture?

[strider1276]

That's good. I like the scorecard a lot. How did that get resolved in the big picture?

Well, I don't want to give away the "FINAL final" resolution, just in case there are other Cammies that poke around here, but I will say this:

Between the actions that happened in Forsaken and Awakening, the Kindred had a heck of a Nexus (and a rather pissed-off Envy Incarna that tried to suck the Essence out of the Nexus for her own purposes) to exorcise, but they did manage to successfully perform an exorcism. A cominbation of Ordo Dracul Geomancers, as well as mystics from the Lancea Sanctum and Circle of the Crone, actually got together and performed the ritual, after engaging in a good bit of what could only be called "city-wide feng shui", although I don't know exactly how that worked out or was handled (I didn't ST that at all).

Turned out to be fun. I got to play that spirit in the exorcism scene (as none of the Requiem staff really knew much about spirits) - the look on people's faces when I kept taking damage and didn't go down was just wonderful. However...let's just say that 100-on-1 odds (even at 5 at a time) isn't so great, and eventually the spirit was worn down enough to leave.

It was good stuff.