Odd Hours vs Werewolf: The Apocalypse

Compare Odd Hours and Werewolf: The Apocalypse side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Odd Hours	Werewolf: The Apocalypse
Genre	Horror, Modern	Horror, Modern, Fantasy
Tags	Fear & Stress Mechanics, Comedy, Gonzo, Weird, Rules-Light, Random Tables, One-Shot Friendly	Atmospheric, Base-Building, Character Building, Character-Driven, Combat-Heavy, Corruption, Lore-Heavy, Strong GM Support, Superpowers, Urban Fantasy
Core Mechanic	Roll 2d6 plus one of three attributes (Wit, Grit, Strangeness) plus a relevant skill and try to meet or beat a Target Number. Combat is an opposed roll. Beat the defender by 5 or more for a critical hit and double damage. Two resources then shadow every shift: Sanity drops when the supernatural presses on your mind, and Absurdity climbs as you lean into it. You spend Absurdity to reroll a failure, shrug off a point of Sanity loss, or take the higher of two rolls.	Build a d10 dice pool, usually from an Attribute plus a Skill. Each 6 or higher is a success, and meeting the Storyteller-set Difficulty wins. Pairs of 10s add successes. Rage dice replace regular dice up to current Rage and can cause Brutal outcomes.
Dice	2d6	d10 dice pool
Complexity	Low	High
Accessibility	Very High	Medium
Runnability	High	Very High
License	Proprietary	All Rights Reserved
Third-Party Publishing	Not yet researched	Commercial publishing allowed — Storytellers Vault
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Cost	Free	$$
Publisher	Route 9 Games	Renegade Game Studios
Year	2026	2023
Best For	Groups who want low-barrier horror with a comedic streak for one-shots or short campaigns at a single weird location. It suits players who improvise from atmospheric prompts and lean into absurd moments instead of optimizing their characters.	Groups who want long-form modern horror about shapeshifter packs defending communities from ecological and spiritual threats, with violent power constrained by moral and social consequences.
Highlights	Sanity and Absurdity move in opposite directions, so the dark humor that raises Absurdity becomes a resource you spend to reroll failures or cancel Sanity loss. The Overnight Manager plays the gas station itself as the lead character, voicing its moods and the cryptic calls from its unseen Owners as a presence the table improvises around. Reaching 5 Absurdity unlocks Strange Abilities bought with advancement, once-per-session quirks the station leaves on you rather than powers you earn.	Rage dice make supernatural power volatile because Brutal results can redirect failed actions into destruction or magnify successful violence. Choosing a Garou form changes a character's capabilities, creating tactical and narrative options. Caerns give the pack an improvable spiritual home whose traits connect campaign advancement to territory and community.
Considerations	The Overnight Manager sets every Target Number outside a few fixed tables and decides each Absurdity award, so difficulty and pacing rest on table judgment. Combat is deliberately thin: flat weapon damage, one primary and one minor action per turn, and only basic move-and-cover positioning rather than a tactical grid. Rituals, Strange Abilities, and backgrounds come as a handful of examples the book openly tells you to expand on yourself.	After a turn without a kill, Crinos requires Willpower each turn or frenzy follows, making the war form difficult to sustain outside violent scenes. Harano and Hauglosk can remove a Garou from play when despair or absolutism fills either track, making moral decline a campaign-level consequence. The game centers mature environmental and spiritual horror, including graphic violence and themes of exploitation and extremism that require deliberate table boundaries.