opening match 2: Dungeons & Dragons 5e vs Werewolf: the Forsaken
I had thought to write up Pathfinder 2e vs Mage: the Awakening as match 2 of this opening round, but as I drafted that review I kept tripping myself up with the fact that Pathfinder is basically a Dungeons & Dragons spin-off faction. it would make more sense to write about its predecessor first, so I switched things up. match 3 will likely be up pretty soon though.
this, once again, is a very unbalanced pairing. Dungeons & Dragons has been part of my life for so many years now, while Werewolf is still very brand new.
I've kept the same rough outline going in this review: table of basic metadata, summaries of prior characters and any other past experience relevant to each system, followed by observations on aesthetics, mechanics, and overall approachability. let's go!
| SYSTEM | Dungeons & Dragons (5e) | Werewolf: the Forsaken |
| cover tagline = | "Arm yourself for adventure." |
"A storytelling game of savage fury." |
| publisher = |
Wizards of the Coast |
White Wolf |
| pub. date = |
2014 | 2005 |
| original cost = |
$49.95 | $34.99 |
| length = |
11 chapters / 320 pages |
8 major sections / 398 pages |
| my exp. level = | very much lots | barely any |
previous characters and experience
I looked everywhere in our house for my very first D&D character sheet, and I could not find it. and this means I cannot remember or recount to you the mouthful of a dragonesque surname I gave to my dragonborn character who was raised by halflings. her given name was Raffya (like the paper ribbon twine you get at craft stores, but oh so fancily spelled with a y). all I recall of her surname is that started with M and contained multiple Ls and Xs and such.
the first character I actually put into gameplay was called Brickna, a cute little wizarding gnome with colorful hair and rather modest dreams of making it through wizarding school.
around the same time, there was Arxillia Liaholinaii, a talented elf warlock who started out traveling with a local troupe of performers but ended up fighting and adventuring alongside three others for a few months until we had to move and leave that group's campaign. I later heard she was captured by orcs or something, and the DM was toying with the idea of having her return as a villain. I do like to imagine Arxillia's mysterious warlock patron turning her gradually from neutral to evil somewhere along the way... but I lost touch with those friends and never found out her ultimate fate.
not long after that, I built Nadja Gunderson, a human fighter sailor, blonde and tanned and toned, who quested with a band of longtime childhood friends to protect their home from imperial overlords of some sort. when at level 4 or 5 Nadja fell, instantly, regretfully, to a blue lightning dragon, I repurposed the name Raffya for an intrepid dwarf ranger for a little bit in the same campaign.
the next D&D character I made was at least a couple years later, after we'd moved to Louisiana: Juniper Thornspur (June for short), a halfling monk with some alchemy skills.
much more recently, I played as Lady Lidda Woodsweep, halfling rogue noble carrying on the tradition of arcane trickster magic that flows through her maternal lineage. Lidda had quite an arc, in one of the longest D&D campaigns I've been part of so far. she rescued her elder brother and saw him take up their father's mantel as Lord of Sycamore Keep, liberated (Robin-Hood-style) a ton of gold from a huge corporation, and almost died any number of times. I love her and I loved playing her. I have a bunch of notes for her story's epilogue that I still need to write up one of these days.
then there were three relatively shortlived concepts: Jinxia, an earnest dragonborn barbarian hoping to study more deeply the histories of her tribe; Ilva Ivoryhearth, a vengeful half-elf druid mostly based on Poison Ivy from the Batman comics; and Rylika Aven, a wood elf sorcerer artisan making ends meet with her crafty leatherworking skills. all of these were built for short and sweet one- or two-shot adventures. (why are single-session games called one-shots? I'm not sure. but if anyone has the etymology of the phrase, please do share.)
last but not least, there is Vikki (Victory if anyone's trying to be formal). she's a purple tiefling barbarian entertainer, and she is high in the running for least serious of any of my D&D characters. I modeled her just a little bit on Xena Warrior Princess: showy and brash, forcefully strong and highly acrobatic, awkward at anything that isn't fighting.
so what does that come to? counting Raffya the first, a total of 11 unique characters. and on top of my player experience, I've helped out with Jeremiah's plans to run one-shot games for family at the holidays, dabbled in running the Curse of Strahd adventure module twice, and presided over my own short and sweet one-shots of Ginny Di's everso whimsical "Bard Behind Bars," once in person and once online, so far.
that's seven years' of experience for you. on top of that, there's all the cultural prevalence of D&D we could pile on, too, from Stranger Things to Critical Role to all the memes that use the basic alignment chart as a frame for funny jokes. also the new movie! have y'all seen Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves yet? it's a truly hilarious and wonderful film. go see it. come visit me and we'll watch it together if you want.
on the totally other hand, before this little tournament I had never made any characters for Werewolf, nor even thought about doing so. I hadn't heard much about the game either, just knew it was one of several World of Darkness flavors.
new characters etc.
it does feel like overkill to make yet another D&D character, but I gotta be consistent with this, right? I was quick and a little bit slapdash about it, at least. this version of character creation is all too familiar, so thinking through it without writing anything down on paper seemed sufficient. I've never played a cleric or a paladin or a half-orc, so this was a random chance to build something along those lines. let's call her Nyva the Compassionate. she is strong and wise, mostly reserved but with some reputation as a Folk Hero for saving dozens of townsfolk (half-orc and human alike) from a great flood and looking after local orphans. missionaries converted her to an order of extra-selfless paladins just two or three years ago, and Nyva has since traveled the realms doing as many good deeds as she possibly can.
there. will this inspired half-orc appear in any future gameplay? we shall see. she rounds out my dozen D&D characters interestingly, at least.
for Werewolf, I created two brand new characters. since Werewolf is a World-of-Darkness system, it seemed fair enough to shortcut half of this character creation process by repurposing the normal rock-climbing human Briella (previously mentioned in the first match-up) as a template of sorts. (confession: I've used her as a base for my new Mage character, too, and I'll very likely also make her into a changeling and a vampire when the time comes. why not?)
Ella in this shard of the multiverse is still herself, but Changed by the fate of the half-moon into a sharper, even more driven creature. she knows when you're angry or lying or guilty, and she is not afraid to boss you around.
I also created Mr. Ryan Booth, a scrawny hacker dude for whom his werewolf powers give him even more charisma, insight, and control of technology.
since I'd never played any of this game at all before, dearest husband was graciously willing to run a short one-shot of Werewolf for us the other day. my two prototype characters + four others were added to a pre-made roster for me and two other friends to choose for the game. I ended up playing a strong, extra-tall, extra-spiritual Taylor Grettig, whom I pictured as a mashup of Brienne of Tarth and Luna Lovegood. my tournament characters Ella and Ryan served as fun NPCs. by the end of the session, after a few gripping battles and cunning investigations, our pack of werewolves restored balance to the natural and supernatural aspects of Jerome, Arizona, but not without almost losing our alpha in the process.
aesthetics
what else can I say about the solidly Tolkein-ish legacy that D&D has been built on? we could call it classic. or maybe neoclassic, in a way. indeed, it reminds me of all the romanticizing of medieval times that goes on in western art and literature (i.e. let's tell stories of gallant knights and fairest ladies and idyllic countrysides, but just for fun ignore all the plagues and injustices that don't fit the picture). this is rather an oversimplification, I know. of course of course games don't have to be "historically accurate," whatever that means, and neither do stories-- not all of the time. I'm making observations here, not logging criticisms quite yet.
the D&D books exude bright and striking contrasts-- rich shadows and vibrant magics all layered on top of each other. the worlds and realms of this system come with a certain clarity. maybe it's in part because D&D is so popular, so ubiquitous: for whatever reasons, you tend to know what you're getting. it's a sturdy, robust, serviceable high fantasy, with a multitude of opportunities for exploring and fighting as heroes, for saving the town, saving your allies, saving the kingdom, or saving the whole world. it's not a simple or limited fantasy world by any means, but its range flows out within the lines of a culturally predominant kind of storytelling, for the most part. good guys vs. bad guys, rinse, repeat. there are caverns and monsters, magic and danger, but more than enough courage and pluck to vanquish it every time. sometimes there might be poignant costs to pay. but the heroes will always see victory. D&D is an optimistic, mostly cheerful sort of fun.
Werewolf is obviously much more focused and the boundaries of its world are colored with more muted tones: earthy, rusted, teeth and bone. the lore and folklore evoked by Werewolf stretches back eons farther than any pseudo-medieval age of heroes. we're talking ancient, echoing myths, seemingly infinite and inescapable. the moon's subtle glow filters into this world through layers of prehistoric legend. this isn't high fantasy. it leans on the grungy urban fantasy of World of Darkness and gives it an almost pantheistic tinge of spiritualism. everything has an underlying spiritual essence, and that essence has agency and personality of its own.
to play this game, your character must be or become a werewolf: a member of a Changed supernatural people sworn to respect the honorable old ways of their tribe, their pack, their lunar auspice. maybe your werewolf will be a hero, but it's not necessarily the bold, relatively more colorful Tolkein-esque hero D&D would have you play. I wouldn't call Werewolf optimistic in at all the same way.
what both systems tap into, for me, is a sense of power. physical and supernatural powers are out here for the taking in these two games. for Werewolf it seems a raw, overflowing, barely-civilized power, frightening, at times violent, difficult to control but undeniably holding everything together somehow. part of the vibe of this game is whether or not you can find balance in your existence as part wolf, part human.
for D&D the power we're playing with seems just a little bit more refined-- a power accessed through just the right steps, through hidden doors, magic books or months of training. the edges are sanded off a little. it's measured and glittering like lightning caught in a shard of crystal or starlight coaxed into a polished jewel. am I working my way into a metaphor where Werewolf is bare-handed street fighting and D&D is olympic fencing or something? well, not quite. but maybe sort of.
mechanics
like World of Darkness, Werewolf uses ten-sided dice and the same basic stats and skills and willpower, with modifications depending on which form the character may shapeshift into (human, near-human, wolf-man, near-wolf, and full wolf). there are also custom advantages and gifts that only werewolves have access to. they channel magic of a sort through contact with spirits and spiritualized objects. each werewolf earns dots of Renown in one of five categories, and these memorable feats contribute to that character's visible reputation, kind of like gang tattoos or ritual scars, but more mystical. they also have points of essence and primal urge that inform how powerful or capable they are. the Virtue and Vice system also functions here just like it does in regular World of Darkness.
health points work a bit differently for werewolves, which I find very cool. werewolves heal fast. even lethal damage goes away naturally within 15 minutes of in-game time, as you regenerate health at the beginning of every turn. if you choose to spend an essence point, you can regenerate even faster.
this is partly why I have a sense of Werewolf as a game of power. they have heightened senses, buffed strength and speed, magic rituals and innate regenerative powers-- it feels like werewolves can do anything far more easily than anyone else can.
I'm sure in a longer series of play sessions that sense of power would have been tempered by various mechanics we just didn't get a chance to deal with in our one-shot. shapeshifting too carelessly can induce Lunacy in humans around you. essence points don't last forever. and instead of regular human morality, werewolves are bound by the rules of Harmony: an ethics system meant to measure the balance (or lack thereof) between instinct and reason, spirit and beast, tranquility and rage within each werewolf. sins against Harmony might cause derangement. and on top of all that, there's your legendary weakness to any pure silver weapon or bullet.
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D&D
characters are built with three main foundations and some very mathsy
framing to hold it up for gameplay. we have 9 basic races (dwarf, elf, halfling, human,
dragonborn, gnome, half-elf, half-orc, and tiefling), 12 basic classes
(from barbarian to warlock), and various backgrounds (from acolyte to
urchin). and this is exactly the order the book would have you choose
each element-- race, class, and then background.
the options you
choose here will influence your six ability scores (strength, dexterity,
constitution, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma), and these, in
combination with other proficiency bonuses, will influence all other skill
modifiers, maximum hit points, initiative, attacks, and defenses.
on top of that you can acquire weapons, armor, and other equipment
of mundane and magical aspect, some of which will add bonuses to your skills as well.
the book outlines D&D gameplay using three-ish categories: exploration, social encounters, combat encounters, and
downtime. given the flexibility of RPGs, any given session or campaign
might have more of some and less of others. in my experience, most
players seem to expect and enjoy at least 2/3 (or more) combat encounters, with
everything else filling in the other third (or less) around the edges. combat is some
of the most exciting gameplay in this system. it can be an intense
context for creative, critical thinking. and the dice keep everyone on
their toes not knowing exactly what will happen.
the most
important random number generator of D&D is the twenty-sided die.
for most significant actions in this game, you'll roll a d20 and add a
modifier depending on which skills or tools you're using to do the
thing. the magic crossbow gives your attack a +8 to hit? add that number
to whatever your d20 roll gives you. higher rolls with higher modifiers
added are more likely to succeed, but it always depends on how
difficult the task is to begin with.
there are other dice, of
course. for various other rolls in D&D (damage dealt, hit points
regained, hours left until you can cast that spell again, etc.) you need
at least one set of seven (1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 2d10, 1d12, and 1d20). friend Patti, I think it must have been back when I was working on the board game version of The Plaid Identity, gave me my first set of dice. they are black with speckles and I still have them all (accompanied by many more at this point). thank you Patti.
approachability
the Player's Handbook for D&D is a slim, easy-to-read, well laid-out manual. decent organization and decent cross references for most stuff that needs it. and though it is not the only D&D book there is-- far, far from it-- it is the only one you really need to play. the rules and mechanics are easy enough to learn, though I do think different classes come with different levels of complexity. not every player is going to love having to keep track of which spells their character decided to prepare every in-game morning, for example.
the ubiquity of D&D of course makes a difference here, too-- there is a ton of support and help and overall enthusiasm for D&D plastered in easy-to-find spots all over the internet, from twenty-year-old forums to yesterday's reddit posts. there are apps that can guide you through character creation and gameplay. there are probably a hundred or more unique actual-play streams or podcasts or youtube shows for you to reference. there is merch of all kinds. almost anything you could ever want to talk yourself into. and the existence of all that is both cause and result of its popularity by now. you probably know at least one person who has done some D&D-related things at some point in their lives. overall it means pretty low barriers to entry for any D&D newbie. if you have any earnest desire to play this game, you have no excuses.
the Werewolf rulebook isn't much longer than the Player's Handbook, and for the most part it is just as well organized. but to be fair, the first edition of Werewolf: the Forsaken isn't so common anymore, nor so widely popular as the opponent I've set it up against. and for Werewolf to work as intended, you'll also need the prerequisite World of Darkness core book to get started. that's a bit of an extra hurdle, but only a bit of one.
the extra rules of Werewolf are interspersed with
plenty of short, moody vignettes and other, shorter introductory sections
that set up the ancient gameworld contexts that function as in game
mechanics. some of the font choices for one or two vignettes are perhaps
a little audacious, the contextualizing lore sections perhaps a little
too heavy on the italics. nothing major. I also felt that the order of things
wasn't as smooth or intuitive as I might have wanted it to be, but only
in quite minor ways. there are a good handful of decisions to make and lists to consult during character creation-- which of five lunar auspices will mark your character? which of five tribes will they belong to? which handful of possible advantages and gifts will you choose? it may seem like a lot for some, but it's all part of customizing the experience.
preliminary verdicts
of these two RPG systems, Werewolf is currently a smidge more intriguing because of its relative novelty. but of course it is hard to resist the massive phenomenon that is Dungeons & Dragons. I have already logged hours and hours of fun, engaging, dramatic, moving, often scintillating gameplay with good old standard, core-rulebook-only D&D. it's been around (in general and for me) for so much longer. it has become so ubiquitous, particularly in its 5th edition, for good reasons.
Werewolf though-- it's so unique. and even our basic, zero-XP, no-frills characters were rolling very exciting dicepools of 6 or 7 d10s on a regular basis during our very first encounters, which felt very cool. the spiritualism of the world was intriguing and a little creepy, almost evoking a sort of Studio Ghibli style abundance. and that's what I generally love about all the World of Darkness games I've played-- they get to be so consistently vivid. the imagery of them lingers most satisfyingly in my mind.
so I'll mull over this comparison while I write the rest of my reviews. stay tuned.
next new one-shot (tomorrow!): Scion: Hero
next match-up review (this week, I'm hoping): Pathfinder 2e vs Mage: the Awakening
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