Werewolves Powered by the Apocalypse - a Mephisto review

An evil, supernatural force tried to break through to earth a long time ago in Central America – but it was beaten back by brave warriors. In revenge, however, a curse struck the warriors, changing them into a mixture of wolf and human. With the European conquerors, new evil spirits came to reassemble this dark power, which is only called La Madre, and the werewolves became "Los Cazados" - the hunted...

Los Cazados is based on the Apocalypse World rules and loosely ties in with Urban Shadows. On just five pages, Los Cazados offers a sketch of a setting and a few rules to play this game independently. The three statistics are arranged in a way that a high value is not necessarily good. The statistic Furia, for example, makes it easier to unleash the inner wolf to stop opponents – but it makes it difficult to live together with family and allies. However, many tests are not based on the statistics but get bonuses/penalties based on the circumstances, which are checked by simple questions. In addition to their fighting skills, Los Cazados also have rituals that help them.

Los Cazados looks like the extremely condensed version of Werewolf with Mexican backgrounds. The setting is, at best, loosely associated with Urban Shadows. Even though many elements are familiar, the game setting is described very vaguely. A roleplaying game could hardly be more compressed, but it requires some previous knowledge about Apocalypse World to understand the concepts fully. The concepts Los Cazados convey are exciting and can – if the group finds its own truth – provide a fast start to play werewolf setting.

(Björn Lippold)

Nicely done hack for running a PbtA game of werewolves fighting evil spirits and demons in a world similar to our own but with supernatural underpinnings.

The setting is Mexico and the setup is very cool. The mechanics (while laser-focused on getting the type of story the game want's to tell going) are not nailed to the locale and could be shifted elsewhere if you really want to tell a similar story set in another place. It has a local focus, the pack in Los Cazados should be invested in the specific territory they're trying to take care of.

This is a minigame of Urban Shadows so it doesn't add detailed crunch, though, and if you're looking to translate a certain other shapeshifter game with high fidelity to mechanics it's not going to do what you want.

But if you enjoy these themes, this is a very good take on werewolves for Urban Shadows.