Can I dodge if I don't have the initiative?

Question

It seems every World of Darkness game from the Revised edition allows defensive actions at any point of turn, even if you don't have initiative. I have read it in Vampire: the Masquerade, Mage: the Ascension, Demon: the Fallen, Dark Ages: Vampire and Hunter: the Reckoning. But Werewolf: the Apocalypse is strangely silent at this point.

In W20, you can find references to the Willpower roll for aborting an action to a defensive action, but it is never explained.

I know people that say that means in W:tA you just can't dodge out of your initiative order. What do you think? Do you have any official text supporting one or another interpretation?

Answer 1

The first thing to do is dispense with the idea of "dodging outside of your Initiative order." The only time you'd need to dodge is outside of your Initiative order, since if you're dodging, you're not the acting party. What's most often being referred to in those circumstances is "dodging when you don't have an action dedicated to defense." In those cases, you can make a Willpower roll (or spend a Willpower) to change a previously declared action to a "dodge." (The combat system, remember, presumes that you'll assign actions in Initiative order and resolve them in reverse order. In a forum, you may not be using that rule.)

In Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary, the use of Willpower to convert a previously declared action into a defense is on page 289.

In Werewolf: the Apocalypse Revised, aborting to a dodge has no cost, as per page 205 and 206. "A character can choose to take one of three defensive actions as well. She may also choose to abort a previously declared action in order to do so.[…] Normally, once a player has declared an action, she may not change it. If she has a good reason to do so (a packmate kills her character’s intended target, for example) she may change her action, but she adds one to the difficulty. Aborting to a defensive action does not change the difficulty of said action.")

Now, if you have no more actions left in your turn to spend, you have nothing to abort or change and may not dodge. This is a very good reason to spend Rage on extra actions at the start of your turn.

Answer 2

I'm really not sure about the page it is in but in Vampire the Masquerade third edition (I have the book in Portuguese, so even if I told you the page, it'd probably be a different one for you), it mentions you can make a Willpower roll (Dif 6 or 7. I'm not sure) and a single success means you can change your action to a single defense action (I believe it would allow you to make a dodge roll). Still different from total defense.

Update:

all WW games are compatible and the newest ones always outrule the old ones. When they don't, just use some rule in a previous book. Considering this, use olderr books to fill the gaps and new ones as updates.

Answer 3

Not exactly...

The order of combat is clear: you need to say what you do in the announcement round, slowest to fastest, and then things are handled fastest to slowest.

So the following scenario is rules conform:

Alice (ini 1): "I dodge, if Bob shoots at me"

Bob (ini 2): "I shoot on Dorothy."

Charly (ini 3): "I shoot at Alice."

Dorothy (ini 4): "I dodge Bob's attack"

Now, handling gets interesting:

Dorothy knew she was getting attacked, she could dodge easily. High ini means she can decide informedly. She gets a dodge roll.

Alice had to guess who might attack her, and got it wrong. She does not Dodge Bob, for there was no attack like that announced. Charly attacks her instead. Alice thus does not get a dodge roll against Charly's attack on her own. She might alter her declared action based on the played edition:

• In W20 she spends a Willpower, and rolls normally.¹
• In Revised she can drop her otherwise declared action for a defensive action at no cost.²
• In 2nd Edition, Dodge can be called at any moment, even outside of initiative steps, burning the next action you would have.³ Changing Actions also incurs a difficulty increase of 1.
• In 1st Edition, Dodging can be declared at any moment, but can require you to split your dice pool for the extra actions.⁴

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1 - Werewolf the Apocalypse, 20th Anniversary Edition, p.289.
2 - Werewolf the Apocalypse, Revised Edition, p.205 (Attack, 7th para) & p.206 (Changing Action)
3 - Werewolf the Apocalypse, 2nd Edition, p.226 & p.227.
4 - Werewolf the Apocalypse, 1st Edition, p.233.