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Well...it's not the best Storyteller guide I've ever seen.

It's hard not to review this product without immediately thinking of the weakest part of the entire book - a mystifying discourse on American urban legends, complete with stats for things that really shouldn't have stats - the Hook, for example, doesn't need stats. Neither does he need to be in a Werewolf Storyteller's Guide. Why were they included? Beats the hell out of me. A baffling digression in a fairly solid product.

Anyhow, taking it in order: the opening story is pretty decent, about a Silent Strider Galliard telling of a pack of bored Garou. It's slightly confusing because of the multiple viewpoints, and because it turns out to be a story within a story. It could have been better if they'd concentrated more on a single character, rather than the pack, but it sets a decent tone for the rest of the book.

The next chapter deals with Storytelling advice; here, I'm not so sure about the worth of the book. It has a nice section on being prepared, and the advice given to kludge an adventure out of varied elements is good, but the bulk of the section deals with adventures based on symbolism - dark caves, weird animals, spiritual tests, that kind of thing. Personally speaking, I wouldn't use them - they seem to need a copy of Joseph Campbell around in order to make them work, to begin with, and they seem too obvious, too arbitrary, for player characters to buy. Also, if the player characters aren't in on the mythic theory, then they'll likely be confused by some of the references. Caveat emptor.

This is all made up for by a two-page discussion of what to do when things go wrong - improvise, ensure that Storyteller characters don't overshadow characters, and other useful bits of advice. If the rest of the chapter was similar, it would be a useful buy for anybody.

The next chapter discusses Garou politics in substantial detail, including a monologue by a Ragabash on exactly what's wrong with the Garou Nation - lots of blame all around, which is good for conflicts between the various members of a Pack, and external conflicts with members of other Tribes. (Just as an example: It's claimed that the Uktena are dealing with Wyrm-spirits as a way to gain more power within the Garou Nation. It's probably just a Big Misunderstanding, like everything else that goes wrong in the Whilte Wolf universe - but if it isn't, there's at least a dozen good stories for werewolves in that single idea.) There's also extensive notes for putting in political conflicts in the story, with breakdowns of who wants power (Glass Walkers, Get of Fenris and the ever-scheming Shadow Lords) and how they intend to get it. There's also details of factions within the Garou Nation, like the Silver Pack, and a description of how the human and wolf solutions to problems are very different - a problem for the shapechanging Garou.

What I'm not sure about is the use of moots within the game. I don't necessarily think that they're a bad things, but I think of them as town meetings; unless the player characters are the only ones there, there's going to be a lot of sitting around and watching other, more powerful Garou make speeches and garner support. A system for establishing political support, like the Moot system in the card game RAGE, might be worth thinking about - rather than waiting for something to happen, the characters scramble to garner as much support as they can from various factions. Something to think about if you intend to run a moot; it'll give characters something to do.

A brief section on seasonal Rites doesn't exactly waste space, but it doesn't make very good use of it, either - it's just there, not really doing anything. The Bone Gnawers go out and help people dispossessed on what's supposedly the most violent day of the year, Super Bowl day - but that strikes me as the kind of "Supernatural monster kills oppressor" that's been beaten to death ten million times already. They don't all suck - the Get of Fenris do a neat, Norse-mythology inspired trip to the World Tree to put two humans there, in case something goes wrong in the real world - but they seem more like static scenes rather than something the players can interact with. Good flavor material, but nothing that you really need.

The chapter on setting is the most useful, I've found. Details on how wolves use smell is definitely useful, and it segues into a discussion of how to describe smells as well. A section on surviving in the wilderness drags, but it picks up in a description of the city - portraying the city as both a soulless wasteland, and as a place just as vital as the wilderness. It's packed with details and short adventure seeds for both sides of the debate, including encounters with Jagglings of the City Father, a shamanic cab driver, and a baby abandoned in a dumpster. Good stuff for any campaign.

A description of Werewolf history follows, detailing the major wars that the Garou have made - most of which are mistakes - and offering suggestions for playing Chronicles set in these times. (I'm not sure that I agree that nuclear power/bombs are Wyrm-created, though - it just seems too obvious, and too knee-jerk for me to trust.)

The Enemies section is where the book falters, however. A brief discussion of horror, terror, and the gross-out starts it off, but it's difficult to scare somebody who knows that he can shift into a nine-foot tall ravaging monster that's capable of kicking a Meat Puppet into shreds in a single turn. If you're running a campaign with CoC characters, it's good advice - but it's hard to scare a werewolf, I imagine. Your mileage may vary.

The enemies range from good - DNA Operatives, Chimera, and the remarkable Wyld-Things - to the bad, like the Piper, The Hook and the Mexican Pet. (A giant wharf rat sold as a chihuahua.) Like I said before, urban legends just don't really have a place in Werewolf - not without some justification, at least. Other monsters from Native American myth make an appearance, but I think that they show up elsewhere in Changeling products, and probably in much greater detail. Spearfinger strikes me as one that could be left out - an old woman who hooks out your liver with her namesake finger. (The fiction before it is especially annoying, involving a young woman who - surprise! - gets her liver hooked out for no good reason.)

The Friends chapter discusses what friends of the Garou are like, and gives excellent examples as to what the Kinfolk of various Garou tribes are like - lots of good source detail in here, including the traitorous Shadow Lord kinfolk, and Mafia wiseguys of the Glass Walkers. There's also Kami - basically Wyld fomori - who have a neat assortment of powers, although they seem slightly vague. (You can't play them, for some reason - maybe an upcoming Tribe book, or something.)

The last of the book is the mechanics - new Gifts, new items, new rites, that sort of thing, including useful rules for creating fetishes. The new Gifts are level six, and apparently are meant for NPC characters. The last, Tribal Weaknesses, add Vampire-style weaknesses for each tribe, but I imagine that nobody really uses them.

Is it worth it? Hard to say. Yes and no; yes for some of the Storytelling advice, city and wilderness settings, the more vivid monsters, the conflicts between the Garou, the Garou history...not so much for the urban legends, and the extended riffs on mythological adventures and examples of same. I would recommend this product hesitantly; it's got a lot of good material in it, but there's enough dross to make you think twice before you say that you paid a fair price for it. If you can get it used, like I did, do so.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 3 (Average)

Werewolf Storyteller's Guide
Author: Bill Bridges, Steve Brown, Phil Brucato and others Category: game Company/Publisher: White Wolf Publishing Cost: $18.00 Page count: 136 ISBN: 1-56504-131-3 Capsule Review by Darren MacLennan on 12/31/98. Genre tags: Fantasy Modern_day Horror Gothic	Well...it's not the best Storyteller guide I've ever seen. It's hard not to review this product without immediately thinking of the weakest part of the entire book - a mystifying discourse on American urban legends, complete with stats for things that really shouldn't have stats - the Hook, for example, doesn't need stats. Neither does he need to be in a Werewolf Storyteller's Guide. Why were they included? Beats the hell out of me. A baffling digression in a fairly solid product. Anyhow, taking it in order: the opening story is pretty decent, about a Silent Strider Galliard telling of a pack of bored Garou. It's slightly confusing because of the multiple viewpoints, and because it turns out to be a story within a story. It could have been better if they'd concentrated more on a single character, rather than the pack, but it sets a decent tone for the rest of the book. The next chapter deals with Storytelling advice; here, I'm not so sure about the worth of the book. It has a nice section on being prepared, and the advice given to kludge an adventure out of varied elements is good, but the bulk of the section deals with adventures based on symbolism - dark caves, weird animals, spiritual tests, that kind of thing. Personally speaking, I wouldn't use them - they seem to need a copy of Joseph Campbell around in order to make them work, to begin with, and they seem too obvious, too arbitrary, for player characters to buy. Also, if the player characters aren't in on the mythic theory, then they'll likely be confused by some of the references. Caveat emptor. This is all made up for by a two-page discussion of what to do when things go wrong - improvise, ensure that Storyteller characters don't overshadow characters, and other useful bits of advice. If the rest of the chapter was similar, it would be a useful buy for anybody. The next chapter discusses Garou politics in substantial detail, including a monologue by a Ragabash on exactly what's wrong with the Garou Nation - lots of blame all around, which is good for conflicts between the various members of a Pack, and external conflicts with members of other Tribes. (Just as an example: It's claimed that the Uktena are dealing with Wyrm-spirits as a way to gain more power within the Garou Nation. It's probably just a Big Misunderstanding, like everything else that goes wrong in the Whilte Wolf universe - but if it isn't, there's at least a dozen good stories for werewolves in that single idea.) There's also extensive notes for putting in political conflicts in the story, with breakdowns of who wants power (Glass Walkers, Get of Fenris and the ever-scheming Shadow Lords) and how they intend to get it. There's also details of factions within the Garou Nation, like the Silver Pack, and a description of how the human and wolf solutions to problems are very different - a problem for the shapechanging Garou. What I'm not sure about is the use of moots within the game. I don't necessarily think that they're a bad things, but I think of them as town meetings; unless the player characters are the only ones there, there's going to be a lot of sitting around and watching other, more powerful Garou make speeches and garner support. A system for establishing political support, like the Moot system in the card game RAGE, might be worth thinking about - rather than waiting for something to happen, the characters scramble to garner as much support as they can from various factions. Something to think about if you intend to run a moot; it'll give characters something to do. A brief section on seasonal Rites doesn't exactly waste space, but it doesn't make very good use of it, either - it's just there, not really doing anything. The Bone Gnawers go out and help people dispossessed on what's supposedly the most violent day of the year, Super Bowl day - but that strikes me as the kind of "Supernatural monster kills oppressor" that's been beaten to death ten million times already. They don't all suck - the Get of Fenris do a neat, Norse-mythology inspired trip to the World Tree to put two humans there, in case something goes wrong in the real world - but they seem more like static scenes rather than something the players can interact with. Good flavor material, but nothing that you really need. The chapter on setting is the most useful, I've found. Details on how wolves use smell is definitely useful, and it segues into a discussion of how to describe smells as well. A section on surviving in the wilderness drags, but it picks up in a description of the city - portraying the city as both a soulless wasteland, and as a place just as vital as the wilderness. It's packed with details and short adventure seeds for both sides of the debate, including encounters with Jagglings of the City Father, a shamanic cab driver, and a baby abandoned in a dumpster. Good stuff for any campaign. A description of Werewolf history follows, detailing the major wars that the Garou have made - most of which are mistakes - and offering suggestions for playing Chronicles set in these times. (I'm not sure that I agree that nuclear power/bombs are Wyrm-created, though - it just seems too obvious, and too knee-jerk for me to trust.) The Enemies section is where the book falters, however. A brief discussion of horror, terror, and the gross-out starts it off, but it's difficult to scare somebody who knows that he can shift into a nine-foot tall ravaging monster that's capable of kicking a Meat Puppet into shreds in a single turn. If you're running a campaign with CoC characters, it's good advice - but it's hard to scare a werewolf, I imagine. Your mileage may vary. The enemies range from good - DNA Operatives, Chimera, and the remarkable Wyld-Things - to the bad, like the Piper, The Hook and the Mexican Pet. (A giant wharf rat sold as a chihuahua.) Like I said before, urban legends just don't really have a place in Werewolf - not without some justification, at least. Other monsters from Native American myth make an appearance, but I think that they show up elsewhere in Changeling products, and probably in much greater detail. Spearfinger strikes me as one that could be left out - an old woman who hooks out your liver with her namesake finger. (The fiction before it is especially annoying, involving a young woman who - surprise! - gets her liver hooked out for no good reason.) The Friends chapter discusses what friends of the Garou are like, and gives excellent examples as to what the Kinfolk of various Garou tribes are like - lots of good source detail in here, including the traitorous Shadow Lord kinfolk, and Mafia wiseguys of the Glass Walkers. There's also Kami - basically Wyld fomori - who have a neat assortment of powers, although they seem slightly vague. (You can't play them, for some reason - maybe an upcoming Tribe book, or something.) The last of the book is the mechanics - new Gifts, new items, new rites, that sort of thing, including useful rules for creating fetishes. The new Gifts are level six, and apparently are meant for NPC characters. The last, Tribal Weaknesses, add Vampire-style weaknesses for each tribe, but I imagine that nobody really uses them. Is it worth it? Hard to say. Yes and no; yes for some of the Storytelling advice, city and wilderness settings, the more vivid monsters, the conflicts between the Garou, the Garou history...not so much for the urban legends, and the extended riffs on mythological adventures and examples of same. I would recommend this product hesitantly; it's got a lot of good material in it, but there's enough dross to make you think twice before you say that you paid a fair price for it. If you can get it used, like I did, do so. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 3 (Average)