Werewolf the Apocalypse; Session 1

Going a little backwards in time, this is a one-shot I ran two weeks ago to introduce a new player (Andy) to tabletop RPGs. Frankly I'd rather do 4e D&D as an introduction to gaming since it's easy to generate scenarios and it's just complex enough to hand players the idea that it can get pretty arcane, and in fact Andy had listened to some podcasts about 4e games, but all the players were stoked about the W20 Kickstarter.

My goal in running a one-shot as campaign introduction was to give the new player both conflict and resolution in the same session, and introduce all the big things the players could potentially do in a game (social interactions, social interactions that played off them being Garou, magic and the spirit world, and combat).

Since most tabletop games tend to wind up with characters referred to by role, by player name, or by both ("Jon's druid") I'll actually stick with that convention. Hence the player character pack are;

• Crypto; Uktena theurge, the team's brainpower/mage. A grad student in Native American studies, the character's been rediscovering his mostly buried First Nations roots. Crypto took the Curiosity flaw - the character's almost pathologically compelled to investigate things - and his family, who are mostly white or Coast Salish, handed down a powerful fetish which is an obviously very old Aleut visor.
  
  
• Kes; Child of Gaia metis galliard. Supernatural warder turned rave kid, so the pack's social animal. Although werewolves are creatures of muscle with access to ancient ancestral weapons and magics, invariably someone decides to bring firearms, and that's Kes this time 'round.
  
  
• Prancival; Get of Fenris ahroun. The muscle of the group, currently living in a loft above his day job at a boxing studio, his Wyrd is to bear the powerful rune-hammer Hagalaz. So far in the game he's either had poor luck using it or has relied on the pretty potent Brawl skills, so I'm thinking of developing the plot point that his Wyrd is to carry the hammer - not necessarily as any sane Get would think, to use it in battle. There's a little more, very WoD backstory to the character.
  
  
• Andy; Silver Fang philodox. Andy's new to tabletop gaming, and his character brings further investigation and social skills to the pack. I don't know what I thought he'd choose, but philodox turns out to give okay access to Rage (the "activate superpower" stat), and suggests a range of skills, without locking the character down to any one thing. So in retrospect it's a much smarter choice than I'd make in that place.

The players figured that it was a lot more worthwhile for them to take a pack totem during character creation than to try saving up XP, which was another savvy decision which I'd never have thought of myself. They chose Boar, which turns out being a really user-friendly choice for new characters - he grants his followers two extra dots in Brawl, which they can circulate among the group, great for scout, shaman or social characters who might not be able to get an okay Brawl score during character generation. If the game continues, I may run a "flashback episode" about how they gained that totem.

( Game description below. )