Paul Bode's Roleplay Game

My name is Paul Bode, I have been a Storyteller or Gamesmaster for nearly 30 years. I have run Werewolf for about 17 of those years. I have a teaching degree and I am now teaching in school - I am a Design Technology specialist. I have a lot of creative urges which I focus into my role-play games and my art. I am not great at ICT though, or building web sites.

 

What is Werewolf the Apocalypse? It is a Role-playing game in which players get to play the persona or alter-ego of another person and make their decisions, experience their problems, joys, successes and losses. Players speak and act as if their alter-ego and interact with other players and the other people that they meet in the world created by the Storyteller. The ultimate goal is for everyone to have a good time, whether the characters succeed of fail is irrelevant. The game is set in our world, the world in which we live....just their are dark things out there! It is a very intense game of social skill and heroism that has you playing as Garou, a werewolf, who have a unique hidden culture that puts them at one with Mother Earth (Gaia). The world is a ongoing world started by Dan Osbaldston back when I was a player and the game has evolved over the years. It spans over 20 chronicles and 12 different role-playing groups, so the world has a lot of history and NPC's (Non-Player-Characters) - some of whom are people's old player characters. I use the published White Wolf setting although I make some slight changes to the system to make it fit the real world better and some embellishments on the game mechanics to prevent loop holes.

 

 

What type of Storyteller are you? I am from the caste that Dragon magazine called a 'Freeplayer', that means that when I run a game the players are in complete control of the game. If they want to go somewhere or do something, they can, regardless of the main story. Players have complete choice and can interact as they believe that their characters would, so I do not actually tell the story my players do...I only facilitate the vehicle that the story arrives in. This gives my players a lot of creative power and some responsibility for the game itself. I use 'scenes' for planning, rather than a whole story planning as some other Storyteller's do. I think up several dramatic actions or intense moments which I will try to run, however often these scenes will be discarded as I am unable to run them. So creativity and improvisation are a key part of Freeplay storytelling. I use a lot of Red Herrings and coincidental scenes so that players are always guessing how they connect to each other. Some times they do, sometimes they don't.

 

 

How do you create such a world? I use much descriptive language, body language, expressions, photos and books as resources, atmospheric music, candles, fragrances, musical instruments, and even this web site as tools to help build the world. The most important tool though is the players imagination, without it the game is just a load of people gathered around the table. I also use lots of other techniques to help build the world and characters, like Preludes, Blue Booking, Conspiracy playing, music for thoughts, 

 

 

Does that mean my character can die? Yes it does. In a role-playing game it is always bet to have a healthy fear of death, for that fear is often what keeps you alive. I, as a Storyteller, (ST) will not kill you, instead your actions or a bad dice roll will result in death. The best skills that you can have in my game are wits, good social skills, a keen mind and a bit of luck. However always remember it is your actions that can bring you into contact with danger. Some have called me a player-killer in the past, as my game <can> have a high death rate, as when in trouble of his own making, I will not bail a character out. You live or die by your actions, it often takes new players a few characters to realise this.

 

 

How many players do you have in your group? That depends but 4 is my optimal and preferred number, although in the past it has been as low as 2 and as high as 9. I often have a lot of people waiting to join a group, it has in the past caused me to run more than one game a week. I normally run 2 games with two separate groups but at the moment due to time it is back down to 1 again. If both groups are playing werewolf they are in the same world, and players may move groups or meet up with other players throughout the game, depending on the story and the characters.