Playing Hunter Without Edges (Part 1)

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Horror Gaming - Playing Hunter Without Edges (Part 1)

Home > Arts and recreation > Sports, games, entertainment > Indoor activities and games Author: Bill Kte'pi Published on: April 3, 2001 Subscribe to My Topic Page 1

One of my favorite games to come around in a long time horror or otherwise is Hunter: the Reckoning, the sixth game in White Wolfs World of Darkness setting. This is the one that really turned everything on its head, making the protagonists of all the other games the bad guys and previously harmless mortals became the heroes. Uncertain, sometimes misguided heroes, who started the unwinnable fight to take back the night with the aid of special powers from mysterious beings who did not or could not identify themselves. The kick of the game has been that Hunters arent supernatural theyre regular Joes and Janes, librarians and traffic cops and construction workers and domestic goddesses who just wake up one day and realize theres a vampire over there, and theyre going to have to take him down. But if Hunters have special powers, how is it theyre not supernatural? That seems to be the most frequent question asked about the game, especially among those who dont play it. And there are answers, some of them given, some of them hinted at. You can answer by talking about the Messengers when a Hunters uses an edge, he does appear supernatural to those with second sight, and perhaps this is a hint of the Messengers or a related force moving through them. You can answer with simple statements: Hunters arent supernatural because Hunters arent supernatural. If that seems perplexing to players, good; it perplexes the characters as well. Or, if youre feeling froggy, you can answer by asking back, What special powers? Edges and creeds receive so much attention by fans that too many people come away with the impression that thats what Hunter: the Reckoning is about: another group of badasses with tricks up their sleeves. It isnt, any more than Vampire: the Masquerade is about badasses who can turn into bats, or Wraith: the Oblivion is about dead badasses who can possess the living. Such powers exist to give a little flavor and action to the game, but to define these characters by such abilities is akin to defining yourself by your license to drive and your library card. You are not what you can do; you are why you do it. So why not take the safety net away? This could be just for a given session or story the Hunters know so little about where their powers come from, it can throw a nice paranoid monkey wrench into the works to take them away for a bit with no explanation. Or you can change the world of the game altogether not only do Hunters not have edges tonight, they dont have them tomorrow night, or the night after, or ever and they never have. Go To Page: 1 2

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Horror Gaming - Playing Hunter Without Edges (Part 1)

Home > Arts and recreation > Sports, games, entertainment > Indoor activities and games Author: Bill Kte'pi Published on: April 3, 2001 Subscribe to My Topic Page 2

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Its important to keep in mind that this is a more critical change than simply altering the mechanics of dice pools or using point-based character creation. Youre altering the tone of the game. Responding to an obscure message and call to action from unknown sources, and discovering you have unusual abilities with which to do so, is one kind of horror; suddenly realizing your supervisor is a rotting corpse and not having any special way of dealing with it is another. Played right, there isnt a quantitative difference; its just a matter of flavor. So what can a Hunter do? In any setup, she should retain second sight and hence, Conviction with which to fuel it. Without that, youve got a librarian wandering through the stacks wondering which of the library patrons is THE DEAD THING. She also retains her immunity to the Embrace, as well as Dominate and other mind-control abilities. Otherwise, shes not going to last the night. Whether or not to use creeds is a matter of Storyteller choice. For some people, creeds and edges are all but synonymous after all, a Hunters creed determines his primary virtue, which in turn suggests which edges hes going to possess. But really, creeds are about more than that. They arent splats. No one is initiated as a Redeemer, turned into an Avenger, or born a Judge. Its a game concept that puts a handle on a characters outlook and approach to the Hunt, and its just as useful as such independent of edges. In the next column, in two weeks, well discuss where to go from here how to construct Chronicles and adventures for edge-less Hunters. Go To Page: 1 2

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Last time around we talked about burning the safety net out of your Hunter game taking away the edges, the special powers that set Hunters so far apart from other humans. Some modifications are necessary, of course, on the part of the Storyteller but the player had better learn to adapt, too. So what does a Hunter do, without edges? She learns to plan. If you take a cops gun away, hes still a cop; hes just a more careful cop. It should be the same with Hunters it may seem like thats a responsibility of the players, but it isnt entirely. The Storyteller is the one who sets the mood, the tone, and players respond to the world theyre playing in. This is an even more paranoid world than the one Hunter: the Reckoning usually takes place in. The Hunters can be more easily hurt, and have a harder time taking the monsters out. But theyre still determined to do it. Show this through NPC Hunters: the guy who stocks up on canned goods in preparation for the day when hes going to freeze up and be too scared to leave the house; the mother who secretly follows her kids to school to make sure the monsters dont get them, and who volunteers for school-related activities at every opportunity, to check out any new employees and other parents; the reporter caught between his burning need to let people know the truth and his certainty that no editor would print anything even resembling the truth. An edgeless Hunters only real weapon is knowledge, and the secret to this kind of game is showing just how deadly and dangerous knowledge can be especially to those who possess it. If the world were run by vampires and you couldnt do anything except pick up a stake and hope you get one before they get you, would you really want to know about it? Or would you rather remain in the dark? Answer silently, and to yourselves. Me too. But Hunters are the ones who choose to take the stake, bide their time, and aim carefully. These Hunters arent going to have time to organize much, if at all without Cleave, your life expectancy just isnt very long. But this game isnt about living a long time and making grand plans. This is a game of finding out the world is wrong and sacrificing yourself in the hopes that itll be better in your wake even just a little bit. Go To Page: 1 2

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The players need to understand that, and in order for that to happen, the Storyteller needs to give their characters adequate motivation. Any Hunter will figure out before long that they arent going to eliminate all the monsters; theres neither world enough nor time. So what are they fighting for? Its more than survival the easiest way to survive is to just sit back and play ignorant. The individual players will figure out, undoubtedly, what specific things theyre fighting for, yes. But the Storyteller needs to play to these. Assume the NPCs mentioned above are PCs. The guy stocking up on canned goods? Paranoia drives him think of Mel Gibsons character in Conspiracy Theory. So feed that. Show him that the local meat-packing plant may just be a convenient way for some shifters to dispose of the parts of their prey they dont eat. After a fight he barely lives through, have him wake up at the hospital looking up at a smiling rot. The protective mother? The obvious thing to do is put a child in jeopardy but you dont need to. She already knows that every monster in the world is a threat to children. Instead, show her a monster child: a goblin baby that drinks the tears of its playmates; a young rot in her sons class; a little boy on the bus who just doesnt look right and keeps smiling at her. The reporter? Show him what happens when people arent warned about the truth. He didnt bother filing a story on the disappearances at that nightclub, because his editor had rejected his last five stories and threatened to stop the advances if he wasted any more time on tabloid junk. Then his editors daughter disappeared only to show up a week later as a rot, smiling at the reporter with blood-red lips. Just take some care not to hit the PCs with too much at once; you dont want to spend every other session coming up with new characters. Go To Page: 1 2

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