Public Access vs Werewolf: The Apocalypse
Compare Public Access and Werewolf: The Apocalypse side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| Public Access | Werewolf: The Apocalypse | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Horror, Modern | Horror, Modern, Fantasy |
| Tags | Investigation, Mystery, Collaborative, Player-Only Rolls, Fiction-First, Character-Driven, Atmospheric, Corruption | Atmospheric, Base-Building, Character Building, Character-Driven, Corruption, Drama, Lore-Heavy, Strong GM Support, Superpowers, Urban Fantasy |
| Core Mechanic | When a move is triggered, roll 2d6 plus one of five ability modifiers. A 6 or less is a miss, while many moves split hits into 7–9, 10–11, and 12+ tiers. After a result is narrated, a player can turn a Key to raise it one tier and replace that outcome with a different timeline. | 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. Each pair of 10s counts as four successes. Rage dice replace regular dice up to current Rage and can cause Brutal outcomes. |
| Dice | 2d6 | d10 dice pool |
| Complexity | Medium | High |
| Availability | Free core rules | Paid |
| Runnability | 3 of 5 book tools | 5 of 5 book tools |
| 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. | ||
| Publisher | The Gauntlet | Renegade Game Studios |
| Year | 2023 | 2023 |
| Languages | English, French, Spanish | English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese |
| Best For | Groups seeking a finite collaborative analog-horror campaign where player-built theories, personal histories, and found-footage prompts shape the truth behind a small-town conspiracy | 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 | Clues have no fixed locations or canonical answers, so players assemble them into a theory and roll to establish whether it is true. Turning a Key raises a resolved roll by one tier and replaces the narrated failure with an alternate timeline. Odyssey tape prompts let players author uncanny broadcasts that become a campaign timer and feed connections back into Deep Lake. | Brutal outcomes can force destructive failures or add four successes to actions the Storyteller judges can benefit from Rage. 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 | Dawn, Day, Dusk, and Night must occur in order, which constrains free-form scene pacing. The Keeper must synthesize campaign discoveries into a custom final TV Odyssey mystery. The intended campaign engages childhood trauma, body horror, ritual sacrifice, and other dark material. | A Crinos-form Garou who did not kill in the previous turn must spend Willpower at the start of the next turn or enter frenzy, 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. |