Rock & Stone vs Werewolf: The Apocalypse
Compare Rock & Stone and Werewolf: The Apocalypse side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Rock & Stone | Werewolf: The Apocalypse | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Horror, Modern, Fantasy |
| Tags | Classic Fantasy, Comedy, Dungeon Crawl, Fast-Paced, Heroic, High-Power, Random Tables, Rules-Light, Strong GM Support, Theater of the Mind | Atmospheric, Base-Building, Character Building, Character-Driven, Combat-Heavy, Corruption, Lore-Heavy, Strong GM Support, Superpowers, Urban Fantasy |
| Core Mechanic | For a test, roll a d20 and add the relevant skill; a total above the GM-set difficulty succeeds, while an exact match succeeds with a complication. Natural 20s and 1s produce especially heroic successes and fatal failures. | 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 | d20 | d10 dice pool |
| Complexity | Low | High |
| Accessibility | Very High | Medium |
| Runnability | Low | Very High |
| License | AELF Open License Version 1.0a | All Rights Reserved |
| Third-Party Publishing | Commercial publishing allowed — AELF Open License Version 1.0a | Commercial publishing allowed — Storytellers Vault |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | Free | $$ |
| Publisher | Sebastian Hahn | Renegade Game Studios |
| Year | 2025 | 2023 |
| Best For | Groups who want a fast, rules-light dungeon crawl about unusually capable dwarven mercenaries, with a compact setting and a ready-to-run starting adventure. | 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 | Gold committed to the dwarven hoard pays for levels, tying treasure recovery directly to advancement. Archetypes grant selectable active and passive abilities, giving each dwarf a distinct role within the shared skill system. Carousing turns a between-adventure roll into complications and opportunities that can seed later expeditions. | 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 | Characters are built around the last-dwarves premise, although the rules permit other heroes. Advancement grants its largest skill and ability gains through level four, after which levels add only hit points and one skill point. Spells are fixed archetype abilities with limited daily uses, so groups seeking open-ended magic will not find it here. | 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. |