Make the changes that you want to see in the world
There’s so much going on in the world right now. A lot of it I want to change, and I do what’s within my power to help. And in role-playing, I am the literal god of the game universe. There’s no limits to what I can fix and alter — so my game worlds have been changing.
Right now I’m drafting an RPG (well, a virtual RPG; stupid quarantine) using second edition Werewolf: The Apocalypse. Second edition is old at this point, so even if you’re familiar with Werewolf, the setup has changed a wee bit since I started gaming. So let me give you some context.
In Werewolf, shape-changers are half beast, half human, half spirit creatures that are born to be the guardians of nature. In the game, fracking, chemical spills, and deforestation are done by humans — but are egged on by a spiritual force of madness and corruption. (Because you would have to be mad to fuck up your environment, right?) Horrible monsters and evil spirits all try to corrupt and destroy the planet, and as a werewolf, you get to fight them.
Things like greed, hatred, and madness are actual spiritual forces in second edition Werewolf. You can enter the spirit world, find a spirit of hatred, and literally punch hatred in the face. Pretty cool!
These shape-changers are born from ancient bloodlines, but not everyone undergoes the change. Those people with werewolf blood but who aren’t werewolves are called kinfolk, and they get the short end of the stick. Most werewolves are born from kinfolk families, so breeding is important and the shape-changers kind of fight over their kin or control them. Choosing not to have kids isn’t really an option for them, because the Earth needs its warriors, right?
Well, that sucks. My wife, Erica, has long been a champion of the kinfolk. They’re unsung heroes at best, and more often second-class citizens or just breeding stock. And more and more, that’s just not sitting well with me.
Werewolf is a game in which you can punch hatred in the face. The antagonists are agents of spiritual corruption, they’re greedy materialists and they’re bigots. I’m all down for fighting them and they make great bad guys — they’re pretty inarguably evil. But they’re the bad guys. When the supposed protagonists are the ones disenfranchising a minority — their own kinfolk — it’s harder to see them as the heroes. The ones who treat any class of people as less than their own are the ones the heroes should be punching in the face.
So we come back to being the god of my game universe. I can change anything, so let’s change this. Most systems and gaming groups make space for a Storyteller’s personal system alterations, called house rules. We’ve changed how aggravated damage works in White Wolf, for example. The same goes for settings — make any changes that you need to for your story and personal gaming preferences.
So Erica and I decided that maybe in ancient days kinfolk were marginalized, because for most of history, people were awful and did that to each other. Okay, fine. History sucks sometimes. But we’re changing, so our protagonists can change, too! In Werewolf: The Apocalypse there’s — big surprise — and apocalypse coming. The forces of evil grow increasingly powerful, the Earth suffers more, and the werewolves are an endangered species.
When shit happens, who do you turn to if not family? So in our Werewolf games, the kinfolk are stepping up. After all, they’re not half animal, so it’s easier for them to fit into most of human society, to get an education without flying into a bestial rage because campus parking sucked that day. They can become scientists to push for climate change research and lawyers to fight legislation to drill on federal preserves. And since there’s not enough werewolves to fight all the battles to protect Gaia, the kinfolk can take up arms.
Alright, so maybe these humans who can’t heal from chainsaw wounds in seconds don’t get sent to fight subway train-sized monster-worms, and they can’t generally enter the spirit world to go punch hatred — but there are other evils to fight. Spirit-infested people turned into rotting shock troops and even just mortal hate groups. Silver bullets tear through werewolves like tissue paper, but they’re no worse than lead bullets to kinfolk. Cover them in kevlar and arm them to the teeth, then they can take out those goons packing silver. So now kinfolk fight alongside their families.
We decided that if the werewolves have elders that lead and regulate their rituals, combat training, and treat with friendly spirits, then the kinfolk should have an elder on equal footing who sees to the education, training, arming, and deployment of the kinfolk. We’ve written up their own ranking system and structures, ensuring that kinfolk can serve and rise more like their werewolf counterparts.
And as the werewolves slowly die off — as their bloodlines fail and others die in battle against increasingly terrible odds — the kinfolk stand up and join their packs to run with the wolves, because why not? Call it a sign of the apocalypse, proof that the end is near and the guardians of Earth will fight their last battle soon, because that works in game.
But more importantly, the stories we tell show what kind of world we wish to live in. And in the worlds I want to create, anyone who keeps other people down gets punched in the face.
