Of all the additions FFG has made to the core Talisman gameplay, I have always found the Reaper NPC to be the weakest. He rarely has an impact on any of our games and we often reach a point in the evening where we realize we have been forgetting to roll for him altogether. With this in mind, I was very interested to see what they had come up with for the Werewolf now that they have several years of expansion-craft under their belt.
The result was underwhelming, to say the least. The Werewolf itself is little more than a rehash that does little to address the problems that have caused the Reaper to be under-appreciated. Lycanthropy isn't much better, amounting to a basic stat boost with a slight, barely noticeable drawback. However, the basic outline is solid, so I began tinkering with the rules to see if I could come up with something that better suiting my preferences.
I have never liked that the Reaper had a mostly negative influence on gameplay, so the first thing I would like to do is eliminate the "alpha predator" concept entirely and make it possible for the Werewolf to be encountered and defeated for some suitable reward. This would cause players to consider him as a part of their game plan, hopefully causing less forgetfulness to occur.
I would also make the change between day and night have a stronger effect on the outcome of an encounter. I think the best approach would be to tone him down during the day, rather than make him more dangerous at night. The easiest way to do that would be to simply cut out the results that cause the die to be rerolled, so that during the day there is no danger of losing multiple Lives in one encounter. Also, Lycanthropy should only be contractible when encountering the Werewolf at night.
Which brings me to my next point. Having a character Lycanthrope on the scene should be a game changer for everyone at the table. It should also be as much of a curse as it is a benefit, if not more so.
For the curse aspect, I would make the lure of bloodlust much more pronounced by playing into the trope of a werewolf as a mindless killing machine. I wouldn't suggest removing player control completely, but Lycanthropes should have more limited movement options. Instead of simply being required to attack another character if they chose to land on their space, it should be a requirement to move and attack whenever the option became available. Perhaps they could only be allowed to move to spaces where there was a potential character target no more than six spaces away. This could be extended to teleportation as well, forcing the Lycanthrope player to move to a space containing another character and attack them.
Of course, with additional drawbacks there should be added benefits. I think the most interesting way to go about that would be to allow Lycanthropes to use the Werewolf NPC to their benefit. Instead of attacking him, encountering the Werewolf could cause the 6 result from his chart to happen automatically, giving the Lycanthrope another option for healing and fate replenishment, as well as teleportation. Also, instead of rolling movement for the Werewolf they could send him to encounter a character of their choice as if a 5 had been rolled. Having most of the Lycanthrope's bonuses centered around the Werewolf NPC would create an interesting dynamic where everyone else is trying to crack the piñata for their reward while the Lycanthrope is fighting to protect the source of their power.
Anyway, I just wanted to put this up to gather some external feedback before the new expansion becomes part of our sessions. Has anyone else been having thoughts along these lines?