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Zomborgon posted:I just remembered I found a Hunter: the Reckoning core book lying around, no idea what the difference is from Hunter: the Vigil. Maybe I'll take a look at it. Basically everything.
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Dec 20, 2016 03:52
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Cinnamon Bear posted:All of those Hunter Conspiracies are insanely corrupt and evil in their own right, at least from my reading of the H:tV book. They're equally useful as antagonists, even if you're playing a member of one. Also one of the things Hunters have to deal with is becoming so divorced from what is "normal" or "acceptable" that it's a short hop, skip, and a jump to sociopathy and serial killer. Well, Slasher, really. Not all of them. VASCU, f'rinstance, is mostly on the up-and-up. They're the guys who hunt down Jason Vorhees and, when they meet a Dracula, they're the guys who try to follow due process. Yes, they're still subject to "He who fights monsters", but it's in the cop show way where you're still on the right side now, but slipping that next inch is so very tempting. After all, you know he did it. You can't prove it, not in court, but the streets would be better off clean of scum like him, wouldn't they? And you know the guys who'd look into it, they know it too. They'd have your back. Just one little accident... And eventually you're just another of the poor bastards locked up in Lansing. Yeah, some of the conspiracies like the Knights of Saint George are intentionally evils that just happen to be targeting other monsters at the moment, but most of them fall into a grey area, with adjustable shades depending on your needs. The Lucifuge can be Hellboy, the guys who'll just have a beer with other monsters assuming they don't want to start poo poo, with the meetings with the Malleus Maleficarum being "We're big fans of the J-man too. You still remember we aren't the evils worse than man, right?", or it could be an ancient demon working with a mad cardinal to power play her way to control of Hell. As for why it's something people want to play? There are things that go bump in the night. Hunters are the ones who bump back. The World of Darkness is traditionally a place where mortals get the fuzzy end of the lollipop. The conspiracies are a way to turn the tables and play as the MIB or the BPRD, people who have a chance to not just kill a Dracula, but to force his skinny rear end into burning daylight to remind the rest of his foul ilk that the world isn't theirs.
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Dec 20, 2016 03:52
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I ran a Hunter campaign for a long time, centering on Task Force Valkyrie, and for my players a lot of the fun was reminding the monsters why they live in a World of Darkness and are too afraid to come out in the daylight. You could read it as fascist power fantasy, sure, but to me that's both very simple and very boring. We played it in the spirit of letting people sleep soundly in their beds and worry about the troubles of normal life because people like Valkyrie are keeping a lid on the real monsters - a war in the shadows that the world will never be grateful to the soldiers who fight it because things would have to gently caress up spectacularly for the world to know anyone was fighting for it in the first place. Sometimes a murderous monster that needs to be put down is just a murderous monster that needs to be put down.Count Chocula posted:At that point you stop being the underdog and start becoming the fist of state power hunting down the Other. And that can be fun. I initially pitched Hunter to my gaming group as "The President has been kidnapped by vampires. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the President?"
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Dec 20, 2016 04:22
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I had completely forgotten VASCU for some reason. But thanks for reminding me about the Knights of St. George from Witch Hunters. I kept intending to use them as an antagonist group at some point but I eventually fell out of love with the system.
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Dec 20, 2016 04:26
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And really, Beasts are the most grievous offenders, but lot of the supernatural are just outright monstrous vampires eat people and werewolves rip up people - Prometheans and Changelings being pretty much the exception but even then they can cause severe havoc even without meaning to. VASCU is awesome, my personal favorite however is The Union, they're just your joe blow trying to make things a little better for their neighbors.
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Dec 20, 2016 04:35
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There's a reason the primary question in Hunter is often "What gives you the right?" On both sides.
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Dec 20, 2016 04:36
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Count Chocula posted:And something about all the Hunter love squicks me out. I get the appeal of playing Ash or Buffy or Sam & Dean Winchester, but the fans who want to gleefully play SWAT Teams or government death squads hunting down 'monsters' rub me the wrong way. At that point you stop being the underdog and start becoming the fist of state power hunting down the Other. I suddenly recall you taking the side of the God-Machine when talking about Demon. Can't imagine why that came to my mind just now.
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Dec 20, 2016 04:43
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Daeren posted:I suddenly recall you taking the side of the God-Machine when talking about Demon. Can't imagine why that came to my mind just now. Well he who hunts monsters should be careful, because well, actually...
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Dec 20, 2016 04:55
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Lynx Winters posted:Basically everything. Yep. The Vigil is a variable level game, mostly about regular people taking back the night, but featuring play all the way up to the point where, with some combination of big guns, unshakable faith, supernatural powers, and plain old brass balls you can throw down with monsters on more or less even ground. Even at the highest level, you're dealing with other Hunters as well as the 'real' enemy, because maybe you're VASCU and TFV is trying to close one of your cases first to win some government dick-measuring contest, or maybe you're with the Lucifuge, and someone from Cheiron wants to chop you up so they can tape your arm to their janitor and make it shoot bees. The Vigil is about being Buffy-but-poo poo. Some supernatural gee-gaw gives you the power to fight monsters (which is impossible without someone giving you a pick-me-up, before you ask) and vague instructions. Then you and all the other hunters, who share a secret internet forum, gently caress about and accomplish nothing, because Old Hunter was built so's nobody would bother the real power players. To sum up, New Hunter is badass (mostly) regular humans who can, with a lot of luck and solid planning, loving wreck almost anyone's poo poo. Meanwhile, Old Hunter was empowered former humans (they can't awaken, can't be turned, their souls work different...) who mostly can't do crap. (I will admit to a certain amount of bias)
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Dec 20, 2016 05:03
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Old Hunter was a wreck, that's not bias.
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Dec 20, 2016 05:04
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Daeren posted:I suddenly recall you taking the side of the God-Machine when talking about Demon. Can't imagine why that came to my mind just now. Same! I heavily use Hunter stuff as antagonists in my Mage game, and I like having a mix of "good" and "bad" conspiracies/compacts, or looking at how and why the "good" ones are in opposition to people like the PCs. David Hill, the Changeling developer and Mors' perennial bugbear, posted two compacts for Beast that show the divide pretty well. One of them is a support group for Beast survivors that plays on the "what happens after you terrorize people to teach them a lesson" part, while the other is a survivalist/fundamentalist compound wackos who hunt Heroes for getting in the way of God's plan. There's a pretty clear sense of one of them being sympathetic and the other not so much.
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Dec 20, 2016 05:18
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Old Hunter sounds cooler, to be honest. You in the World of Darkness, a gothic world built by and for monsters. You SHOULD be the doomed underdog- you might win a little victory, but if you win a big one it's a season/series ending arc that takes requires the sacrifice of your life and/or your soul. That's Evil Dead, maybe Bloodborne, Buffy, Supernatural, Hellblazer...even Hellboy has half his comics end in stalemates. I can't think of anything that's about well-equipped humans beating monsters on their own terms besides Death Valley (which nobody watched) or Van Helsing. Besides, look at who the monsters are metaphors for. With the exception of vampires, who usually stand in for the aristocracy/1%, there's usually a connection to marginalized groups. oHunter includes the Hunters in on that, whether as militia or just general outsiders. Half of nHunter does too, but the SWAT Team stuff...eugh. I mean, different strokes, have fun playing what you play, but if we're talking about uncomfortable politics in games that's my 2 cents.
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Dec 20, 2016 05:21
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Night10194 posted:Old Hunter was a wreck, that's not bias. The bias is in favor of things that are not dumpster fires.
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Dec 20, 2016 05:23
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I don't know what went on during the development cycle of Hunter the Reckoning but I would imagine there was a point where any attempts to make the Hunters actual threats to supernaturals was shot down. They seem pretty threatening with some of their abilities but even at their very rare rank 5 powers they're not that threatening, especially to the truly evil and threatening groups. Their rank 5 powers relative to other supernaturals are about two level behind in terms of what they can do as well. They can gang up on a lone threat and come out on top but the second they go against anything with cohesion or synergy, they're beyond hosed. Vigil hunters are a step up but Chronicles of Darkness is pretty different in terms of powers and supernatural threats to the world at large.
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Dec 20, 2016 05:49
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Rank 5 powers in Reckoning were also mathematically impossible to get, and required GM fiat (and a derangement, I think?) to get something kind of cool.
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Dec 20, 2016 05:57
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Lynx Winters posted:Rank 5 powers in Reckoning were also mathematically impossible to get, and required GM fiat (and a derangement, I think?) to get something kind of cool. You had to make a deal with an "angel" or demon so GM fiat was a huge part of it. It was almost like they were saying, "Dumbass, why are you playing this game? This is what you get for thinking you could rise to relative mediocrity. Now go play a good game like Kindred of the East"
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Dec 20, 2016 06:04
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Hey folks, System Mastery is back again with two episodes in one day (three if you're into crowdfunding). First of all, we read and reviewed NightLife! This is a fascinating game from 1991-92 that's a little bit White Wolf, a little bit Palladium, and a whole lot ridiculous. It's like a splatterpunk monster party in some of the best ways, while being a bit hampered by that early release (and some deeply clunky, definitely accidental racism). And if that's not good enough, we finally showed up on the One Shot Podcast, where we played Triniton  Triniton is a fairly lightweight game system from Sweden or something, and we basically goofed around all over it. James is hosting, and we're joined by a third player, the man who created Jackie Chan Adventures, Leverage, and Jaime Reyes, John Rogers. That was unexpected. If you've wanted us to do live play, here's where we finally do. Don't worry, literally nothing from the cover made it in*, it's all robot koalas, gun salesmen, and keytar gags. *I am realizing this is a lie since that green fishcat monster from the bottom right corner will be relevant in the next episode.
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Dec 20, 2016 06:29
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Lynx Winters posted:Rank 5 powers in Reckoning were also mathematically impossible to get, and required GM fiat (and a derangement, I think?) to get something kind of cool.  .
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Dec 20, 2016 06:41
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Count Chocula posted:I mean, different strokes, have fun playing what you play, but if we're talking about uncomfortable politics in games that's my 2 cents. says the guy who also supported Beast "Oh yes Gamergate is actually right those nasty minorities are really monsters" game
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Dec 20, 2016 06:53
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NGDBSS posted:Wait, how does that work? I can understand something being stupid difficult to access because it requires a lot of questing and/or accumulated XP, but it being "mathematically impossible" to access is another level of game design It was intentionally so so that you would have to ask God to maybe let you have your superpower that also would be kind of disappointing even if you got it.
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Dec 20, 2016 06:55
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Robindaybird posted:says the guy who also supported Beast "Oh yes Gamergate is actually right those nasty minorities are really monsters" game Please don't engage White Wolf Stymie.
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Dec 20, 2016 06:57
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Hunters had three virtue tracks: Mercy, Vision, and Zeal. All went from 0 to 10. Buying a power used up points on the appropriate track, so you could only ever buy 10 points worth of powers for any one virtue. You also needed the previous power for a creed to get the next one. That means if you bought all Defender powers, which use the Zeal track, you could get the first four since the costs add up to 10. On the other hand, if you took the first three Defender powers and the first Avenger power (also Zeal), you could never buy the fourth Defender power because 1+2+3+1=7, leaving you with only three of the four Zeal points you'd need to get the fourth Defender power. Since buying the first four powers for a single creed used all of your points in that virtue track, the game explicitly said you couldn't fit that 5th power in the same way, and the GM would have to come up with some way to decide whether you can get it or not.
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Dec 20, 2016 07:01
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Night10194 posted:There's a reason the primary question in Hunter is often "What gives you the right?" This gun and the American Constitution! 
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Dec 20, 2016 11:02
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Hipster Occultist posted:This gun and the American Constitution! Pretty sure that's a Compact.
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Dec 20, 2016 11:17
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The Lone Badger posted:Pretty sure that's a Compact. Nah. One Compact is American big game hunters who have found that monsters are quite a bit more fun and challenging to hunt than wolves or bears, another is a union of blue-collar workers who aren't just blowing smoke when they say the new CEO is a bloodsucker.
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Dec 20, 2016 13:21
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Cythereal posted:Nah. One Compact is American big game hunters who have found that monsters are quite a bit more fun and challenging to hunt than wolves or bears, another is a union of blue-collar workers who aren't just blowing smoke when they say the new CEO is a bloodsucker. In my Valkyrie game, I also invented Project Looking Glass, a Compact based out of the NSA. They've figured out how to record monsters on film, wiretap Towers, and run surveillance on the Hedge.
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Dec 20, 2016 13:22
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Post is not edit.
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Dec 20, 2016 13:22
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Hipster Occultist posted:This gun and the American Constitution! "I am a duly licensed FBI Special Agent. Special Agent Francis York Morgan. Everyone calls me York." is the best Reason to Hunt but that's mostly because VASCU is great. Followed shortly after by "Because this is OUR home." for the Union.
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Dec 20, 2016 13:23
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Night10194 posted:"I am a duly licensed FBI Special Agent. Special Agent Francis York Morgan. Everyone calls me York." is the best Reason to Hunt but that's mostly because VASCU is great. My Valkyrie game interacted with the Union a couple of times. "No, seriously, my new boss was literally a bloodsucker."
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Dec 20, 2016 13:29
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OTOH, the best concept pitch in the hunter corebook is "Cheiron Group janitor who got loaded up with implants due to a clerical error and got a sudden transfer to the monster-hunt division."
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Dec 20, 2016 13:30
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unseenlibrarian posted:OTOH, the best concept pitch in the hunter corebook is "Cheiron Group janitor who got loaded up with implants due to a clerical error and got a sudden transfer to the monster-hunt division." Well yeah but how is anyone going to beat that? Man, I'd run that campaign. E: Though to make it really work, you need to make the Cleaner he got mixed up with his new partner. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 13:34 on Dec 20, 2016 |
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Dec 20, 2016 13:31
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Count Chocula posted:I mean, different strokes, have fun playing what you play, but if we're talking about uncomfortable politics in games that's my 2 cents. I get that your posting style includes inserting dark tidbits about ur own psyche into any thread you frequent, like so many Freudian breadcrumbs, but have you considered that therapy might be healthier for you?
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Dec 20, 2016 14:02
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Dave Brookshaw posted:That drink *Breath*. Now I'm suddenly picturing hopping Kung-Fu owls, and owls that are just a floating head with intestines dangling along.
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Dec 20, 2016 14:58
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The Jiang-Shi are actually mentioned later as a minor vampiric Clan that has been showing up more often lately. No one is sure why.
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Dec 20, 2016 15:05
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Mors Rattus posted:The Jiang-Shi are actually mentioned later as a minor vampiric Clan that has been showing up more often lately. No one is sure why. That's because everybody was kung-fu fighting.
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Dec 20, 2016 15:39
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My favorite hunter group are the sorority girls who banded together to stop vampires from feeding on their college campuses.
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Dec 20, 2016 17:07
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:You had to make a deal with an "angel" or demon so GM fiat was a huge part of it. It was almost like they were saying, "Dumbass, why are you playing this game? This is what you get for thinking you could rise to relative mediocrity. Now go play a good game like Kindred of the East" No, the rules for this weren't in the core book. They were in a splat that was (I think) one of the last released for the line, because of course.
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Dec 20, 2016 17:22
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the sorry state of owod Hunter is basically a microcosm of oWoD's philosophy towards humanity in general. Humans don't matter, literally everything is controlled by fifteen or so different duelling conspiracies that control the world, every important human in history was actually some kind of monster, etc etc. And that's not including the wide swaths of human culture, civilisation or technology that would randomly get labelled as evil every now and then. Trying to play a Hunter marks you as a special kind of idiot. There are no humans in the World of Darkness worth a drat and more fool you if that happens to be your character concept. nWoD feels much less suffocating.Nobody really knows who or what is in charge but it sure ain't the monster conspiracies. They're all down in the muck struggling to get by with the rest of us.
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Dec 20, 2016 17:47
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Also didn't oHunter suffered heavily because it conceived as an aborted attempt to tie Exalted into WoD before somebody came to their senses realize that just wouldn't work?
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Dec 20, 2016 17:52
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It's weird that I don't feel this way about say, Exalted or Nobilis, other settings where normal humans are mostly irrelevant. I can't really explain it.
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Dec 20, 2016 17:55
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