The Rules

Werewolf the Forsaken uses a set of rules called the Storytelling System.

Rolling Dice: When rolling dice in the Storytelling System, you do not add the numbers together. Instead any single die that comes up 8 or better is considered a success. You usually only need one success to accomplish a task, but more is always better (causing more damage in combat, for example). Any die that comes up a "0" (considered a 10) counts as a success and can be rolled again (and potentially get another success). If you roll no successes at all, your character has failed that action. Ones do not cancel, and thus normally you can't botch.

What are the chances...

Dice Pools: The number of dice you roll to attempt something is called your dice pool. It is usually made up of the total of two traits on your character sheet (one Attribute and one Skill) and modifiers imposed by any special equipment your character uses or adverse conditions.

Modifiers: The Storyteller determines what modifiers apply to any dice pool. These either add to, or subtract from, the dice pool (the number of dice rolled). These modifiers usually come from tools used (a bonus is listed with the tool), Merits that the character has (described in the character description), or general circumstances. The Storyteller should grant or impose a bonus or penalty (usually ranging from +2 to -2) if the circumstances are especially favorable or deleterious. For example, an attempt to climb a wall that is slick with rain and slime would suffer a -2 penalty, whereas doing so on one with plentiful handholds and ledges would gain a +2.

Chance Die: If modifiers reduce your dice pool to zero dice (or even less), you should roll a single die (called a chance die). A 10 rolled on a chance die generates a single success, while any other result is a failure. Rolling a 1 on a chance die indicates a dramatic failure, and the Storyteller should describe especially troublesome results (a gun jamming, a blowout during a car chase, etc.). This is the only time you can 'botch'.

Actions: Almost anything a character does is considered a simple action. You determine the dice poll, roll the dice, and see if you succeed or fail. In combat you can perform one simple action per turn. Sometimes, you'll be asked to take an extended action, which represents doing something over a period of time, like researching something in a library or searching a room. In this case, every time you roll the dice represents a fixed amount of time (usually 10 minutes, but it varies for some more involved actions). You accumulate successes from roll to roll until you get a certain number (described in the text), at which point something happens, or you run out of time. Some actions can also be contested, which means that two people are working against each other, such as in an arm-wrestling match, or when a character tries to sneak past a watchful guard. In a contested action, each player (or the player and the Storyteller) rolls the dice pool for their character and the person with the most successes wins. Finally, some actions are reflexive, which means that they happen automatically and don't take up any time -you can perform them and still perform a simple action in that turn.

Turns and Scenes: A turn is a 3-second period and is used in combat. A scene is a longer period (usually as long as it takes for everyone to do what they want in a particular place).

The Character Sheet

The character sheets contain all the game numbers that define a character's capabilities, divided into a variety of types of traits. Most traits are rated from one dot to five dots, much like a star rating system for movies. Different traits represent different things:

• Attributes represent inherent capabilities, such as Strength, Intelligence or Presence. Instead of 7/5/3, you get 5/4/3 to start. Perception, Charisma and Appearance are gone, replaced with Resolve, Presence and Composure respectively.
• Skills represent learned abilities, like Firearms or Medicine. A word or phrase in parentheses next to a Skill indicates a Specialty, an area of the overall Skill in which the character is particularly talented. If you are asked to roll a dice pool in which your character doesn't have the right Skill, you suffer a penalty of either -1 (for a missing Physical or Social Skill) or -3 (for a missing Mental Skill). If, on the other hand, you have a relevant specialty in the Skill in your dice pool, you get a +1 modifier. You get three Specialities at character creation.
• Health determines how wounded your character is, and it has both dots and points. Your character's dots are filled in on your character sheet, and they represent the total number available to him when he is uninjured. His Health points are recorded in the corresponding boxes, denoting his current state of health. (See "Health and Damage" for how to mark off Health points and the effects of wound penalties.) Health levels go up in forms other than homid.
• Willpower represents your character's reserves. You can spend one point (and one point only) of Willpower on any roll, and you get three additional dice in your dice pool. Alternatively, you can spend a point to raise your Defense trait by two against a single attack. Willpower is valuable, and you regain it only for acting in accordance with your character's Virtue or Vice (see individual character descriptions). Willpower is ranked from 1 to 10, unlike most of other traits. You no longer roll Willpower - similar rolls are made using Composure and/or Resolve
• Merits are special edges a character has, such as Contacts or Resources or Stunning Looks. The effects of each are explained in the character's description. No more Backgrounds
• Defense and Initiative Modifier are traits used in combat and are explained in that section.
• Speed is the number of yards a character can move in one combat turn and still perform an action. A character can run up to twice his Speed rating yards in a turn if he sacrifices his action. Speed will most likely come into play in a chase.
• Harmony is a measure of your character's morality, of how far he has succumbed to the Beast. Your character can lose Harmony over the course of play. Harmony is ranked from 1 to 10, unlike most of other traits. Wooo. Humanity for werewolves

Combat

When a fight breaks out, it can be important to keep track of who is doing what, and how badly they are hurting each other. When that happens, follow these steps: First tell the players that their characters are entering combat. Until the combat ends, everyone acts turn-by-turn, with each character everyone getting one chance to act each turn.

Next, have everyone roll Initiative, which is the result of the roll of a single die + the character's Initiative modifier as listed on the character sheet. (This is a rare case where you add the number that comes up on a die to the value of your trait, instead of rolling a dice pool and looking for a success.)

Starting with the character with the highest Initiative result and continuing on to the lowest, each character gets to take a single action (usually an attack). The player can choose to yield her character's action until later in the Initiative queue, or until the next turn if she wishes. Resolve each character's action before asking the next player what his character does.

If a character attacks another character, the attacker rolls the appropriate dice pool:

• Unarmed close combat: Strength + Brawl, minus target's Defense and armor (if any)
• Armed close combat: Strength + Weaponry, minus target's Defense and armor (if any)
• Ranged combat (guns and bows): Dexterity + Firearms, minus target's armor (if any)
• Ranged combat (thrown weapons): Dexterity + Athletics, minus target's Defense and armor (if any)

Add bonus dice based on what weapon is being used or what effect is being performed, then subtract penalties for circumstance conditions. The player rolls the remaining pool. Each success equates to a Health point of damage inflicted, the type of which is determined by the nature of the attack. The Storyteller describes the attack and wound in narrative terms.

Once everyone has acted, a new turn starts and the player with the highest Initiative gets to act again. Players do not make new Initiative rolls every turn.

Complications

Avoiding Damage in Close Combat: Your character's Defense trait represents his instinctive ability to duck and weave and make close-combat attacks harder, and so serves as a penalty to incoming attacks. If your character hasn't yet acted this turn and is willing to forgo that action, he can dodge, which doubles his Defense for the rest of the turn. If your character is attacked multiple times in the same turn, however, it becomes harder for him to avoid being hurt. For every attack targeted at him past the first, reduce the character's Defense by 1 (to a minimum of zero). If your character is dodging, the doubled Defense reduces by 1 for each additional attack.

Avoiding Damage in Ranged Combat: Unless a ranged attacker is close enough that he could just as easily attack in close combat (a few feet), or is throwing a weapon, Defense doesn't apply. To avoid damage in a firefight you can either find cover (hide behind something solid) or fall prone (drop flat to the ground). Falling prone constitutes a character's action for the turn but levies a -2 penalty on ranged attacks. Anyone within close-combat striking distance (a few feet) gets a +2 bonus to hit a prone character, though.

Concealment and Cover: If your character is partially concealed behind an object, she is harder to hit with ranged attacks. The penalty goes from -1 (crouching behind an office chair) to -3 (poking up out of a foxhole). If you are completely concealed, the attacker suffers no dice pool penalty but has to score enough successes to shoot through the intervening object (called the cover). Piercing an object reduces the number of success rolled by a number based on the durability of the cover: from 1 (for wood or thick glass) to 3 (for steel). If this penalty reduces the number of successes to 0, the attack fails to penetrate the cover and you take no damage.

Range: Every ranged weapon has three ranges listed in yards in the format short/medium/long. An attacker suffers no penalty when her target is within the short range. If the target is at medium range, she suffers a -2 penalty. At long range, this penalty goes to -4.

Health and Damage

Damage Types: There are three types of damage, each more serious than the last: bashing, lethal and aggravated. Bashing damage generally results from blunt or stunning attacks. Lethal damage generally results from cuts, gunshots and other more serious attacks. Aggravated damage generally results from especially vile supernatural attacks.

Marking Damage: When a character suffers damage, the player marks off that number of Health points, starting with the box under the leftmost dot of his Health trait and proceeding left to right. The symbol used depends on the type of damage. Bashing damage is marked with a slash (/) in the first available empty box. So imagining that Louis (one of the characters in this scenario, who has seven Health dots) had just taken one point of bashing damage, his Health boxes would look like this:

Lethal damage is marked with an X, and it pushes any existing bashing damage right on the track (so that it always appears to the left of bashing damage). If Louis next took a point of lethal damage, his track would be:

Aggravated damage is marked with a large asterisk (*) by adding a vertical bar to an X. It also pushes any existing lethal and bashing damage right on the track (so that it always appears to the left of lethal or bashing damage). If Louis next suffered a point of aggravated damage, his track would be:

Wound Penalties: If a character is reduced to two or less Health points (by whatever type of damage), the player suffers penalties to all die rolls. With the third-to-last box is marked with a wound, the penalty is -1; when the second to last is marked it is -2; when the last box is marked it is -3. (These modifiers appear on the character sheet for easy reference). These penalties apply to all rolls except those related to losing Humanity (see below).

No More Health: Marking off a character's last Health box usually means that the character has become incapacitated. If that rightmost wound is bashing she falls unconscious. If that rightmost wound is lethal or aggravated, a character quickly bleeds to death. Werewolves in this state reflexively spend a point of Essence to heal (see below) if they have one. Note that this would mean the character has no bashing damage at all, since it will always be the rightmost.

Additional Damage: An unconscious character still be damaged by further attacks. Without further Health boxes to mark off, you represent this damage by upgrading existing wounds. Any new bashing or lethal wound upgrades an existing bashing wound to lethal (make the leftmost / into an X). Additional aggravated damage converts a point of lethal or bashing damage to aggravated (make the leftmost X or / into an asterisk).

Healing & Regeneration: Werewolves heal one point of Bashing per turn, and one point of Lethal point per 15 minutes. An Essence (sort of gnosis) point can be spent to regenerate one point of lethal damage instantly. Werewolves regenerate in every form, but revert to human form when knocked out or killed.