Shifters vs Werewolf: The Apocalypse
Compare Shifters and Werewolf: The Apocalypse side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Shifters | Werewolf: The Apocalypse | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Horror, Modern | Horror, Modern, Fantasy |
| Tags | Atmospheric, Character-Driven, Corruption, Deadly, Fear & Stress Mechanics, Gritty, Superpowers, Survival, Urban Fantasy, Weird | Atmospheric, Base-Building, Character Building, Character-Driven, Corruption, Drama, Lore-Heavy, Strong GM Support, Superpowers, Urban Fantasy |
| Core Mechanic | Roll an attribute die and usually a skill die, each sized from d4 to d20 by the character's rating. Read each die separately: 5–9 gives one success, 10–14 two, 15–19 three, and 20 four. A 1 adds a complication even when the other die succeeds. Meet the Referee's required success count or beat an opponent's successes, with extra successes adding Harm or other effects. Each player gets one Nudge per session to shift a single die by one point after the roll. | 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 | d4–d20 | d10 dice pool |
| Complexity | Medium | High |
| Accessibility | Medium | Medium |
| Runnability | Low | Very High |
| License | All Rights Reserved | All Rights Reserved |
| Third-Party Publishing | No verified route found | Commercial publishing allowed — Storytellers Vault |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | $ | $$ |
| Publisher | Late Gaming Company | Renegade Game Studios |
| Year | 2026 | 2023 |
| Languages | English | English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese |
| Best For | Groups who want modern occult horror where hunting haunted objects risks eroding their characters' identities. | 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 | Harm steps attribute dice down directly, so damage weakens the dice used for later actions. The otherworld called the Gloom drains an attribute step at each scene's start and end unless resisted through sacrifice, weakening the dice needed to escape. Haunted objects called Residues have destruction conditions tied to their emotional origins, turning hunts toward memorials or exposing abuse rather than combat alone. | 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 | The core provides no advancement procedure, leaving the group to decide how skills or abilities improve over a campaign. The colossal beings called Infadha take no Harm from attacks, so ordinary combat cannot defeat them. Several sample Residues are built on suicide, child abuse, and domestic abuse, with safety guidance limited to brief advice during character creation. | 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. |