A wolfling run is a method of playing the Creatures games in which the players do not intervene in the lives of their norns. There are four variants of this, and one alternative.
- A "strict" wolfling run is where you hatch a group of norns in the plain Albia or on the Ark, with no additional COBs or agents, and leave them to grow up by themselves for a period of time without interacting with the game at all.
- A "relaxed" wolfling run is where you set up the world before you begin the run, adding any COBs, agents, metarooms or worlds you like, but once the run begins you are no longer allowed to interfere with the game for the remainder of the run.
- Also, a "Forum Wolfling Run" can be done, where entrants are sought from the collections of the community, often named after their owners, and set loose in a world together, the gamemaster updating the owners of the entrants on a forum thread, often with pictures. The forum wolfling run can be either strict, or relaxed.
- A Global Wolfling Run is exclusive to Docking Station - each player sets up their world according to some commonly-defined rules, and sets it to warp only between the members of the GWR. This is described as being more like an ecologist's fieldwork.
An alternative to a wolfling run is a feral run.
History of the term
Denise Voskuil's FAQ about wolfling runs (also available at The Truth About Grendels) traces the use of "wolfling run" to a post on a.g.c. in May 1997, made by Aznin, a member of the US EAP. This date puts it at approximately 6 months after the UK release of C1.
Rowena considered the term "wolfling run" to belong to members of the US Early Adoption Program, or at least to those runs which held to specific guidelines (January 1998) - however, it has fallen into more general usage.
The term is based on the Uplift novels by David Brin, and is never spelt wolfing.
- This page is about the term wolfling run. For the German Community aktion, see Wolfling Run 2003/2004/2005.
 This article could be cleaned up to make it more readable.
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