The Inside Scoop on Gaming

What it should do

An Introductory Kit should do a few a things. First, it should be simple enough to begin play in about half an hour. Furthermore, it should be compelling enough to want to play the game and keep wanting more. So the main question in this review is: Does the Kit succeed in combining these two, often conflicting, goals?

What it is

Well, the setting is, as we've come to expect from White Wolf, elaborate. After the obligatory glossary and opening talk ("What's role-playing" -- oops, storytelling) we plunge right in the World of Darkness which is the background of Werewolf. What is a Werewolf, History of the Garou, the Umbra (the spirit world), the Litany (Werewolf law) and antagonists: everything gets it's own paragraph.
After this crash course we are deemed ready to make a character. If you thought the aforementioned World of Darkness-stuff was overly complicated for beginning players, character creation is even more complex. As Darren MacLennan so finely pointed out in his review of Werewolf: The Apocalypse, werewolves are divided by breed, auspice and tribe. There are three breeds (is your character born as human, wolf or she the child of two werewolves) and five auspices. Auspices indicate under which moon the character is born: from new to full. This determines the take on life your character has: is he a trickster (new moon) or a warrior (full moon). On to the fun stuff now, the tribes. There are twelve (12!) tribes to choose from, each with it's own advantages and restrictions. While it's fun to have so much background, I think a beginning player would be happier with less tribes.
While the folks at White Wolf didn't simplify their setting, they did simplify their Traits (the attributes, abilities and advantages that make a character unique). You get a 1, a 2, a 3 and a 4 to distribute among on Physical, Mental, Social and Psychic. Then divide 5 or 6 points (depending on your breed) between Rage (supernatural fury & energy that drives werewolves) and Gnosis (spiritual wellbeing and awareness). That's it.

Four pages of Rules follow Character Creation with a simplified version of the Storyteller System. Instead of ten-sided dice, you use six-siders. If you're interested in these rules, you can also check them out in the Vampire: The Masquerade and Changeling: The Dreaming Introductory Kits, since they're essentially the same. I did miss a good example though, one that also offered a view on what role-playing is.

Four story ideas give the beginning GM some material to run those first few sessions. While I thought "Endangered Kinfolk" to be too difficult (the booklet gives 3 lines of information on Kinfolk), I liked "The Doom Pack" a lot. It's about confronting a pack of Black Spiral Dancers (the eeevil, fallen werewolves).
"Rite of Passage", a two-page elaboration of a story idea ends the book. The adventure seems to be pretty cool and a good introduction to a chronicle.

Artwork

Let's talk about the artwork for a while. White Wolf delivers as usual, with technically good black-and-white line art. The three breeds get a picture. The five forms of werewolf shapechanging get one, although only three forms are mentioned in the text (a necessary simplification I fully agree with). Each tribe gets a picture, and these look nice, too. The Glass Walkers are my favorite. The background of many paragraphs is littered with werewolf runes, which look cool and have the right gimmicky feel to appeal to new players. Everybody loves a secret language (remember "The Hobbit"?)
There's one thing I don't like about the artwork, though: I don't like the mood. After the tenth drooling wolf with bulging muscles, it gets annoying. Then again, art and mood are subjective and the game is about angry, powerful werewolves.

Conclusion

So, does this Introductory Kit succeed? Almost, I'd say. The setting is too complex while the rules are very simple and elegant. The number of auspices and tribes really should be toned down and a good example of play would be helpful. Come to think of it, a number of statistics of common enemies would help also -- the antagonists are mentioned, but are never given any stats. A pity, because a new GM will have a hard time of making those up. And where are the character templates? I mean, every White Wolf splatbook has them, but not the booklet that would benefit most of them. They even can double as pre-made characters for the players.
All in all, the kit is a bit too complex and has too little ready-made stuff in it, but I am certainly intrigued by the setting. I'd like to play the game, which indicates that the Werewolf: The Apocalypse Introductory Kit has succeeded in the ultimate goal of a booklet such as this: making new people wanting to play the real game.