"Oh yeah? Well, as the Esperanto would say, “Bonvoro alsendi la pordiston, lausajne estas rano en mia bideo!” And I think we all know what that means."
I've been brushing up on the new World of Darkness in general, and Werewolf: The Forsaken in specific. I really like it, honestly. I like that the genres are standardized, I like that Werewolf has kicked a lot of its stupider concepts to the curb, and I like that the douchebag who ruined Werewolf: The Apocalypse has apparently been fired. If I had to give a major complaint, it's that the game seems to assume you're going to grant the PCs some experience to build with, because otherwise it doesn't feel like you've made very much of a mark on your character. Freebie points are gone, and so are flaws(kind of.) so even a newbie can use at least the basic suggested 35 EXP. The other big thing is that they've included really pointless "twink breaking" measures, where the fifth(and final) point of anything costs double points during character generation. They've "doubled up" on fixing the twink "problem" by also giving fewer build points in every category, so it feels particularly pointless, simply lowering the "efficiency bar" from Five dots to Four.
But this segment isn't about major complaints. Not really.
Languages in PNP Games
Yeah so, I've said before that the "language barrier" challenge in PNP games is never as fun as you think it is. Regardless of that, I still wouldn't want languages removed or anything. I like it when they're simple to get, like in 3.5 and Pathfinder, where a single rank in a skill is a language, and that skill ALSO still does stuff. Fantasy games in particular have a ton of different languages in them, so a PC should probably have access to an easy way to get them. Even the real world has a ton of languages, so I like Shadowrun's method too: Languages have their own amount of freebie points to spend on them, and it's easy to get more. This ensures that the language barrier doesn't come up very much, and everyone can easily fit language into their background. I mean, a lot of us really like to play characters of different ethnicity...but you still need to know English so you're not a burden on the party. So that means modern style games end up with a lot of bilingual characters.
In case it wasn't obvious, I fucking hate it when systems make languages tough or significant to get. in WoD you get seven merit points, and languages are one to three dots: One dot is minimal fluency. Two dots is conversational fluency, and three dots is being a native speaker. As I already told you, you only get seven merit points, and since they lumped the old system's backgrounds and merits into the same category, there's a FUCKING TON of merits to take. This also means something like "Being from Miami" is a two point merit. Oh, sorry guys, I know we really needed someone who had a Grand Klaive of Epic Power to easily destroy the evil Pure tribes with, but I wanted to play a Latino so I didn't have the points. Y'know what? I'm gonna be really petty and make a list of things that World of Darkness thinks are as powerful or less than being a native speaker of two languages. Let's pick Welsh since Wales has a fair amount of bilingual denizens. Here is a list of things that are just as powerful or important as being from Wales.
Having a sixth sense for danger.
Having an eidetic memory.
Being able to use Dexterity to attack with a weapon.
Being able to attack twice in a round.
Being able to use two weapons or guns at once.
Being able to drive and still perform an action.
Being world famous.
Free disposable income of $2k a month and $10k in assets.
Being an official Police detective or high ranking officer.
A magic timepiece that records up to three minutes of the user's experiences.
An enchanted dagger that can pierce armor.
I'm not done. Raising a merit is two experience times the number of new dots, meaning native fluency costs 2+4+6, or 12 experience. Buying a second tier Gift is three experience(for skipping the first dot) plus 5 times the number of new dots, or 13 total. We'll be nice and assume that three XP for ignoring the first dot was spent, even though hardly anyone is going to do that. So, here's a short list of supernatural capabilities just as nice as knowing Welsh.
Brief, single-command mind control.
Earth Shaping.
Doubling your speed for a scene.
Immunity to pain.
Automatically slipping free of any bonds.
Six bonus dice in any leaping attempt.
I mean, if you wanted to play Pitbull as a WoD character...First off, may God have mercy on your soul...but second, even a simple, basic concept such as this costs too many points. He's famous, which is two or three dots. He's rich, which is at least four. Finally, he's from Miami, which we all know is Cuba II, so he has to blow three dots on Spanish. If your defense to this is that a starting PC shouldn't be a world famous rapper, well...if he wasn't Latino, it would be a completely valid character concept. I'm tempted to call that racist.
I could totally go on but I won't. If you read this and think I'm being really unfair...lemme let you in on a little secret: That's the point.
Call Human, the Dumbest Spell Ever.
Okay so they're called rites, I know. Rituals in Werewolf: The Forsaken is a catch-all power of mysticism and various useful things. It's a pretty common thing to include in these types of games, and it basically means someone can feel like a mystic, shaman or wizard without breaking the bank or having to take a specific tribe or clan. I like'em, in other words.
But. Every so often...
Anyway, when I first read this power I was reminded of classic Vampire's Presence discipline, which could compel someone(even a supernatural being) to do everything they could to make their way right to the vampire. It's highly powerful and highly abusable, so I was surprised to see Call Human being only two dots. Then I read it.
So what this ritual does is summons the nearest mortal human in five miles. You can not choose a specific mortal. You put an "offering" of "objects considered to be alluring to the local mortal population" in the middle of the room and then the ritualist performs a howl of summons while moving counterclockwise around the offering. The book even mentions beer and pornography as viable options.
Y'know, the book says this was used in prehistory "over a period of weeks" for a Werewolf to "spread his seed".(The quick TLDR behind this concept is that makin' a werewolf baby ain't easy.) Quick sidenote here: Ew. Only, what the fuck are you going to do, exactly? First off, there's a fifty/fifty shot of this not even bringing a human of the womb-bearing variety to spread your stupid lazy seed into. In fact, it's LESS than fifty percent because we have to allow for the elderly or the already pregnant. Second, if it doesn't, what the hell are you going to do, perform the ritual again? Well Cletus showed up the last time, so he's the closest mortal within five miles now! Third, if you have some sort of gift to compel them to do what you want when they get there, why not just go find someone yourself and use it there? If you DON'T, what the fuck use is this ritual?
In fact, I can't figure out a use for this dumb dumbass spell. The closest I can get is that your territory is mostly wilderness and you use this ritual to root out mortal tresspassers, but a werewolf, with werewolf sense of smell, can easily track someone through their own ding-dang territory, so I can't even tell you it's good for that in good conscience. I'm normally really easy on this stuff, like....oh, it's fluff, it's okay, but there are only nine two-dot rituals in the book. Even rites that give no direct tangible benefit like the Funeral Rites still give an important social benefit and can endear you to the NPCs around you. Call Human is taking up valuable space in the book that could have been given to a rite that's not pants-on-head retarded.
The fact that you can't specify anything and it just calls the closest mortal in five miles blows my fucking mind.
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