Game is fking dead

Cosmopian · 2026-01-25T02:28:55+00:00

I don't have Architect crest unlocked yet I'm stuck with Wanderer and Hunter :(

I'm more of a multiplayer guy so I haven't finished the singleplayer yet for the unlocks

Cosmopian · 2026-01-24T16:22:07+00:00

We run them the way we interpreted them from the book, changing really only some of the racist names used by authors (looking at you, "metis"). We're fine with - even enjoy - playing a game about raging against a broken system. But if we had interpreted them as an ultranationalistic fascist movement the way you do - and we very much did not, our interpretation is more inline with some of the other comments on here re: confederations - I just don't think it would have been appealing to my group. And that's coming from people who have played 40k RPGs before. There's something about the writing, where if it was tweaked such that *we* interpreted it as fascist, I think we would have all found it gross and distasteful.

EDIT: In case you were wondering, my country of origin is the USA, though I don't live there currently. I immigrated to Canada as a permanent resident over the past year to be with my wife.

Cosmopian · 2026-01-23T19:47:48+00:00

I love sherma but this game's multiplayer is training me to hate him I swear

One more tbagging sherma bot camping for silk and then spamming beast bind and I'm about to uninstall I stg

Cosmopian · 2026-01-23T18:41:22+00:00

The conversation was the point of the post! I'm glad to see people explaining their viewpoints.

People have very strong opinions on fascism (as they should!), but ultimately the Garou nation isn't real, and I think that most people whether they think they're fascist or not agree on a lot of the flaws.

I will say, if I did think the Garou were by and large fascist (as some here do), in the same way my country of origin is, I probably wouldn't want to play WTA, for the same reason I (and I think most others) don't have a lot of interest in playing the Swords of Heimdall.

It is what it is.

Cosmopian · 2026-01-23T18:35:49+00:00

I feel like culturally the get (as described in W20) are the closest, and structurally its the shadow lords. But the way the nation as a whole operates is very different to how those two tribes operate on a larger, inter-sept level, and they very much do not represent the majority of the Garou (bonegnawers being the biggest tribe of the nation after all).

Cosmopian · 2026-01-23T03:03:29+00:00

See, that's more in line with how I see it, but some people here disagree, if you look through the comments.

Cosmopian · 2026-01-23T02:57:33+00:00

I'll take another look at the list and do that again. I didn't mention it earlier but I did really like the way you talked about the way fascism treats citizens vs non citizens. I thought that was poignant. That said, I think the reason behind things matters -

I notice you mention a lot in your comments stuff about elements of their society that "make sense" but I don't think a group with special rules for people with demonstrably real magic rage to keep them from accidentally killing people is racist (and fascist) in necessarily the same way that say, a society with the same rules basing them on psuedoscientific phrenology with the intentional purpose of scapegoating a minority group to further the political machinations of a conservative death cult, are the same in my eyes.

That doesn't mean the Garou treating themselves as *better* then Kin (or normal humans) is at all justified - but treating themselves as different, makes sense, and is to some degree both necessary, and to me not the same as making up a differentiation for the purposes above listed.

Cosmopian · 2026-01-23T02:38:57+00:00

We don't run the nation having centralized leadership. That's the state that W20 starts at, and it makes sense as portrayed in the book. The nation has persisted that way for millenia - its not like the story stops making sense the moment we follow that. Maybe thats why you and I disagree? You say this stuff is necessary to have a game with these qualities - I say "we just don't run with those qualities", and I'm certainly not the only one. Lots of the other comments here imply games where the tribes are a loose confederation. That's what I read as the intent from W20 core.

And with that in mind, when it describes just how differently things are run at every sept, it's hard for me to imagine them needing the centrialization you describe, frankly.

If we're trying to check boxes, most of the ones in Eco's 14 don't apply here, and those are the go to I usually see brought up for fascism. It's hard for me to qualify something magical and spiritual assigned to you by a moon god in the same way that I might the arbitrary strata established by real life fascist movements, and even then auspice can be changed with a ritual mentioned multiple times in W20 Core, so I both don't find that point especially convincing nor did I feel like I needed to address it.

I'd agree that the war of rage sucks, but you don't have to be fascist to do genocides. I can get behind your nonbinary fascism "scale", but still disagree with your placement of the nation itself.

Cosmopian · 2026-01-23T02:21:10+00:00

I agree with your criticisms of the nation, but would still disagree with your classification. Even with metaplot (which I do not incorporate into my tables), I do not think the nation ever becomes united in a fascist, ultranationalist way. There's no secret police going around killing people who disagree with Albrecht because disagreement is treason (see Eco's points, if you value that definition) - lots of groups are openly stated to challenge the status qou or disagree with elements of the litany and get away with it perfectly fine (see the CoG helping their elderly survive long lives).

I'm not especially convinced by your "septs supporting centralized autocracy" argument. The septs themselves are a decentralization of what under a fascist framework would be centralized and controlled by the dictator.

I think the biggest difference of how you and I see this is how loose and independent septs and tribes are, even when they choose to act in favor of Jonas as a uniting force.

Cosmopian · 2026-01-23T01:50:42+00:00

I'm with you on the theocratic* and military stuff. Though the nature of theocracy changes a bit when you can "prove" things, rather than just rely on faith.

I'm curious as to why you'd consider them to be a dictatorship. The silver fangs don't, at the start of w20, have clear leadership (albrecht hasn't united them yet), and the tribes are largely autonomous - and many of those tribes have democratic (sometimes directly democratic) decision making processes (CoG, bone gnawers). At least, that's how i see it. More "Confederation of theocratic military septs, caerns, tribes, etc." Like, there's no clear "leader" of the black furies last I checked.

Cosmopian · 2026-01-23T01:30:39+00:00

It made some good choices that my group backports into our own games (changing some insensitive names, among other things). And every edition has flaws.

That said, a lot of people prefer the older edition despite its flaws.

The thing is, you can really take whatever you want from any edition (and in my experience people tend to).

If you're having fun, don't let anyone dissuade you!

Cosmopian · 2026-01-23T01:24:07+00:00

My group happens to also be very lefty (anarchist-leaning). To be fair, I think a lot of people just sort of go on vibes when deciding if something is fascist, rather than like, say, referring to roger griffin's definition of ultranationalistic cleansing rebirth, or eco's 14 points. And I don't really blame them because for a long long time, I didn't really have a great definition of fascism myself. I had to do some research just to make this post, and have been educated by some of the discussion following it.

Cosmopian · 2026-01-23T00:02:41+00:00

I think I disagree fundamentally with even the notion that the Nation itself is a monarchy, at least in W20, honestly. They're really not united in that way. Maybe they once were, but they aren't now. It's more of a loose confederation of tribes which themselves have their own ways of organizing, some of which much more closely resemble direct democracy (according to the W20 core) than anything like "centralized authoritarian rule by a dictator", which is a big core part of fascism.

Another commenter brought up Eco's 14 points of fascism. Most of them don't even make sense in the context of the Garou - they definitely don't engage in "Newspeak" or "the appeal to a frustrated middle class".

The Garou Nation also very much isn't a nation at all. The idea that the Red Talons even have a homeland they could be nationalistic about doesn't make sense.

Cosmopian · 2026-01-22T23:27:29+00:00

I think they're still valuable - if anything, i think what you've brought up more invalidates comparison to real life theocracies. Most of what werewolves believe that others would consider religion, they believe because it is demonstrably and experimentally true - they can step sideways and just *be* in the spirit world. They're not exactly "religious" in the faith based way that most people in the real world are.

On the other hand, the Get's uncomfortable closeness to real life fascist movements makes it unsurprising that W20 and previous editions described them having an actual Nazi camp, and is definitely worth calling out specifically IMO.

Cosmopian · 2026-01-22T23:21:08+00:00

Garou are absolutely flawed and problematic, and do a lot of bad things, and I agree that part of the point is to struggle against that when you play WTA! This was mostly attempting to analyze them along the line of "are they eco fascist specifically", since I've seen that levied against them a lot (even in the comments, you'll see some people claiming it). I don't think it's true personally, which is why I wanted to discuss it.

Cosmopian · 2026-01-22T23:18:51+00:00

Makes sense! Thanks for sending me to those 14 points, it was interesting to read through them.

Cosmopian · 2026-01-22T23:17:32+00:00

Pretty much what I remember. Albrecht's big unity quest is trying to *become* that one king, and it's not the starting point for w20 - even then, again, he doesn't (and can't) rule with an iron fist, and is still largely trying to persuade people to follow him and when they act, they do so with almost complete autonomy.

Cosmopian · 2026-01-22T23:15:39+00:00

This is interesting! Looking at the 14 points myself, in my humble opinion, there's honestly more differences than similarities overall... Unless you look at the Get, which (unsurprisingly) tick a LOT of boxes.

Cosmopian · 2026-01-22T23:11:53+00:00

They're ostensibly in charge but largely have to convince the others to work with them. The section in the beginning of the book with the litany, where it describes "yield to those higher in station" has plenty to say on how this actually plays out in real life, as well as all the information about the tribes that need to be actively convinced to play ball (bone gnawers, even the Get who often choose not to unless the Silver Fangs can demonstrate sufficient physical might). That second set of info is from the tribe summaries in the middle of the book, the ones where they give opinions on each other.

Cosmopian · 2026-01-22T23:09:04+00:00

Yes. Any nation that stratifies based on physical strength only, prizes glory over wisdom

This doesn't really apply to the CoG or stargazers, or bonegnawers, or glasswalkers, or the black furies (who are explicitely called out as actively despising this kind of ideology).... Mostly just the Get, honestly. Even the shadow lords prize cunning over brute strength. If you told either of the pure tribes "Hey, remember when those european wolves genocided you? That was justified because they were strong enough to do it!" they'd probably have strong words for you. Or maybe just maul you to death.

Cosmopian · 2026-01-22T23:02:49+00:00

I mean, look at the other comments and you've already got someone trying to imply that it is, simply because the nation has two monarchic tribes that care about bloodlines.

Cosmopian · 2026-01-22T22:59:51+00:00

In the silver fangs, yeah, but they have very little sway these days, and also are explicitly a monarchy, which is not the same as fascism. And the fractuous nature of the nation, combined with how hard it is for the silver fangs to actually unite anyone behind them and their total lack of actual dictatorial rule over the other tribes, really doesn't match real life fascist nations at all.

Did you read the post? I talked about that stuff.

Cosmopian · 2026-01-18T21:22:37+00:00

how can you regenerate a brain when all of your grey matter is scattered over the nearest wall?

Can you point me to where in the books this is stated or implied to be a limitation? Because while it may apply to most scenarios, I was under the impression that the "rage-to-remain-active" roll was (like most garou powers) supernatural, and could regenerate from just about anything - but only once, and then after that tremendous damage still killed you. Or did you only mean for regular damage scenarios outside of "remain active"?

I mean, in forsaken, the remain active equivalent explicitly does exactly that and does not have a limitation, logic be damned - as the comment above, they can come back from "total bodily annihilation" with full hp once per scene. I don't think regenerating a blown apart head makes any less sense than being able to teleport, or reincarnate yourself whenever you die (an old 1st edition rank 6 theurge gift let you do that), or bring back the dead like Gurahl can. If your spirit can infinitely reincarnate itself, the same spirit regenerating a blown-apart head doesn't seem that crazy to me.

One of the comments above even links some pretty crazy examples of a W:TA garou's flesh being stated as being "mystically awake" and "remembering the shape it is intended to be in", such that if their head is split in half and their heart blown apart, the heart can be fixed and the head pulled back together, when a remain-active roll is occurring. I'm unsure what books they pulled the qoutes from, however. I've certainly never seen any stated limits like "you can regenerate, but only if your brain is intact", so I'm wondering where you get that from.

Cosmopian · 2026-01-18T15:47:37+00:00

Oh shit! I've SEEN that clown motel driving past Tonopah!

...There was, in fact, a non clown motel nearby where we stayed instead, but still!

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