Hunter presents a significant difficulty for day to day role play. People want it, people will do it, but instead of contrasting with the horror, it will emphasize the artificiality of all these Hunters hanging out in a coffee shop, or banging each other, or posing really hard about the cigarette they are smoking. It will have all the intimacy needed for horror and discovery of the X-Files or Supernatural shot with a cast of thirty main characters.
@Misadventure said:
Hunter presents a significant difficulty for day to day role play. People want it, people will do it, but instead of contrasting with the horror, it will emphasize the artificiality of all these Hunters hanging out in a coffee shop, or banging each other, or posing really hard about the cigarette they are smoking. It will have all the intimacy needed for horror and discovery of the X-Files or Supernatural shot with a cast of thirty main characters.
Realistically, how is that any different from any other World of Darkness line when translated to MU* format?
It isn't. What everyone appears to be talking about in terms of the experience of horror, lethality and atmosphere is very different from typical World of Darkness translated to MU* format.
@Misadventure said:
It isn't. What everyone appears to be talking about in terms of the experience of horror, lethality and atmosphere is very different from typical World of Darkness translated to MU* format.
So, worst case scenario, you get a MU* like every other WoD MU* out there. But there's no harm in trying for something different!
I think what people are referring to revolves mainly around plots and scenes - not what happens in between. What happens there is just based on what a player enjoys. Some people love to TS. Some never do. That kind of thing. In my experience, my best downtime RP is influenced by the scenes I've had recently and the plotlines I'm involved in.
Rather than carefree downtime scenes with a character that appears to be nearly invincible, there's a very different feel from a character that might not be alive the next day who has lost more than a few friends doing what they do. Or there should at least be a continuity of character. Maybe they are carefree because they might not be alive the next day. But regardless this Hunter idea should be a different feel than typical WoD games. (Without consideration of the Compacts - that point might be very valid.)
And if a player doesn't relate the character and the theme, can you really do anything about that? The staff's responsibility is to create (and reinforce) the theme of the game. I remember one game where the staff would give us friendly reminders about the constant threat our sphere was supposed to feel. Then every scene we'd go into we'd thrash the NPC enemies into the ground without hardly a scratch to anyone. Hard to feel a constant threat when you've never known anyone who has been anything but mildly annoyed in scenes.
However, when there was a PVP situation and two sides of players were near blows and someone had been killed, everything suddenly got serious and real. Because the threat was real (or at least perceived to be). People really felt like they might get killed. That was much more of a feel of the theme were supposed to be experiencing. But people couldn't handle it and it became all OOC tension instead of the great RP that it was (could have been) generating.
All of that to say: Players are players. The players are usually going to do what they want, but the actual theme of the game can reinforce that and help your game be where you want it to be.
I am kind of sad that nobody wants to do Vampire, because that is my true passion. I could have a Requiem game up in like 60 days.
I'm a rodeo clown.
@tragedyjones
Not necessarily that nobody wants to do one, but...there are still a few more-or-less valid options if they do. I have had yet to see a strictly-Hunter game, and I think one ramped up to 11 would be awesome fun.
@Warma-Sheen said in Pick Your Poison: A Chronicle of Darkness Interest Check:
Rather than carefree downtime scenes with a character that appears to be nearly invincible, there's a very different feel from a character that might not be alive the next day who has lost more than a few friends doing what they do. Or there should at least be a continuity of character. Maybe they are carefree because they might not be alive the next day. But regardless this Hunter idea should be a different feel than typical WoD games.
Yesssss. I think what has lead to stagnation in the hobby is that a lot of these feel like the same game: Get in early, build a character sheet and gather XP until nothing can touch you, and then sit and act like a rabid asshole if someone even suggests coming into your corner of the playpen uninvited. The setting is just window dressing at that point for a glorified chat room. We've talked a lot about game culture here and I think if someone were to deliberately, forcefully detach from the whole Make A Pretty Princess Sock Puppet, Collect Shinies metagame and actively encourage a completely different play style, you'd see different results.
Mortals/+ is way more boring than Hunter.
I think you'd see interest in a game drop off significantly if you went that route.
I would play a Mortal+ place. but, I am inclined towards minor templates.
Vampire has not overly appealed to me thus far but maybe that is because it always seems to confuse me.
Hunter would be sweet but it would need to have stories, plot and the like. Most games I've seen pop up don't want to invest the time that I think it would take to make the game fun to play.
Love or hate that response but if you think about it you'll have to agree... What would make this new hunter game different than Hunter on FallCoast/ Reno / ect?
Then when it's all over and the rest of you are ready for Dead Animal Pickup, I'm gonna go balls deep into Dahl. But only because she asked me to. Sweet-like. - Riddick (2013)
@ThatOneDude
That's the thing that really needs to happen. But there's tons of stuff you could look at and steal ideas or pull things together. Define the supernatural 'baddies' of the city, then work from there as to why various groups of Hunters come to the city, what they do when not blowing shit up, and why they care to not just out the supernatural in such large quantities
Perhaps there's some darkness on the horizon that has been seen by various psychics and seers and such of various Hunter groups, and each one is slightly different... different enough to allow for more cooperation, as people attempt to decipher the crazy scribblings of blind prophets. The city is built with geomantic craziness, drawing together the power of multiple surrounding ley lines. The vampires are here because there is food -- it's a large city of a few million souls. The werewolves are here because the geomantic craziness makes spirits crazy and they are here, murdering the people who cause the spirits to go MORE crazy. The mages are here to draw power from the crazy leyline magic. Everything else you might want to include, figure out a way to fuck around with the 'Sunnydale nexus of mystical whoozit' and go from there.
Build the story. Give the Hunters reason to work together or at cross-purposes. Don't make the monsters sympathetic except in situations where it works (think in terms of, say, the reluctant Werewolf chick from Season 2 of Supernatural).
@Bobotron said:
Don't make the monsters sympathetic except in situations where it works (think in terms of, say, the reluctant Werewolf chick from Season 2 of Supernatural).
I'd go a step further - don't make the monsters understood in any meaningful way. Hunters should know as little as possible about the mindset, goals, abilities or social structures of supernatural creatures, and what little they do have gets extrapolated from those they personally come into contact with, biased as their world-point of view may be, and then on top of it is contaminated again by misinformation and rumor.
If you have to, create a different mythos than expected so not even the players know what the hell is going on let alone the characters. Let them piece together what they can, and encourage (even reward!) mistakes in their estimates.
The worst mistake a Hunter-centric MU* can make is let the PCs get comfortable or comprehend what it is they are after. It's not just that the enemy is beyond them in personal power and resources, as that's a given, but they are nearly alien in their ways. Emphasize this gap and you already have characters off-balance - there's no guy with all the answer sitting at the bar dispensing his (or, often, his player's) wisdom like he's reading out of a manual.
Once that's in place you got a fertile ground to seed with paranoia. Every encounter can be your last, true, but that's not the end of it; even worse, every encounter can be the last in which there's a 'you'; these things can mess with your goddamn mind, or those of your buddies, so not only can't you trust them, you can't even trust yourself. Plant some rumors - Bob is one of those blood-controlled puppets. Or is he?
These are stories you can't tell in a traditional nWoD MU* where all you need to do is throw some supernatural powers around and settle most of these questions in a +job.
Eeeh. That sounds super unfun. "You hunt X but you know nothing about X". Hunters should know things. I mean isn't that the point of a lot of Monster Hunting things/Serial Killer Dramas? "Those who hunt monsters should be careful least monsters they become"?
@Cobaltasaurus said:
Eeeh. That sounds super unfun. "You hunt X but you know nothing about X". Hunters should know things. I mean isn't that the point of a lot of Monster Hunting things/Serial Killer Dramas? "Those who hunt monsters should be careful least monsters they become"?
They do know things! They know vampires exist - they drink blood, they hypnotize people. There are rumors they even have long-term control over them.
But you don't know about the Camarilla or the Lancea Sanctum; some of them are priests or something but is it a cover? Were they just clergy when the got bitten? Why were those two fighting in the back alley?
Then the theme you mention can absolutely take place as Hunters enter the arms war. They're terribly outmatched in nearly every way so to catch up they start doing iffy things (which you can encourage through plot); burn down a building with some bloodsuckers inside but maybe some mortals get hurt.
Then they get access to supernatural weapons which, while potent, come with drawbacks and their use has consequences. How far are they willing to go to catch up? Who are they willing to ally themselves with to go toe to toe with the enemy? How long until their own former friends hunt them down?
That's how I'd do it. Well, one way of how I would.
I concur with Arkandel.
@Cobaltasaurus said:
Eeeh. That sounds super unfun. "You hunt X but you know nothing about X". Hunters should know things. I mean isn't that the point of a lot of Monster Hunting things/Serial Killer Dramas? "Those who hunt monsters should be careful least monsters they become"?
I'd agree with Ark and say that's exactly what he's talking about; acting with conviction on something that turns out to be untrue and people get hurt in the process? OH GOD TURNS OUT YER THE MONSTER AFTER ALL
Not being handed the answers just because it's assumed you already know them, and being forced to not just deduce the answers but deduce them like your character would sounds WAAAAAY fun. The occult is about mystery, after all...where's the mystery if I can look it up on page 302?
@Arkandel said:
They do know things! They know vampires exist - they drink blood, they hypnotize people. There are rumors they even have long-term control over them.
Ignorance makes for dead hunters. Vampire-hunters should know that garlic doesn't do jack to vampires. Werewolf-hunters should know that werewolves can change whether or not the moon is full. It sounds supremely unfun to tell people they don't know things that they should to be able to do their job. Especially if they're playing someone with experience.
This could be my kneejerk reaction to anything that even mildly relates to denying people information from "lores" given how tight-fisted the staff on LAmush was. Whether or not the monsters have an actual social structure is somewhat irrevelant-- they might not have those things in a Hunter only game. But building the game off of a foundation of ignorance from what you hunt? No.
Absolutely not.
@Cobaltasaurus said:
@Arkandel said:
They do know things! They know vampires exist - they drink blood, they hypnotize people. There are rumors they even have long-term control over them.
Ignorance makes for dead hunters.
Exactly.
Vampire-hunters should know that garlic doesn't do jack to vampires. Werewolf-hunters should know that werewolves can change whether or not the moon is full. It sounds supremely unfun to tell people they don't know things that they should to be able to do their job.
I think this is where we disagree. I think the spirit of Hunter is that being a hunter isn't a "job," it's a calling. It's not something you study at a technical college and pass competency exams for. There's no timeclock, you're not expected to meet some sort of quota for werewolf pelts. There's no manual, other than the shitty free blog you've followed for years or the notebook you've scraped together. You're just a scared person holding a candle in the dark, who may or may not know what the hell is out there; sometimes the things you try work, other times the monster eats the bulb of garlic clutched desperately in your fist (and your fist with it). But you do it because you don't want anyone else to lose their lover or child to those things, like you did.
This could be my kneejerk reaction to anything that even mildly relates to denying people information from "lores" given how tight-fisted the staff on LAmush was. Whether or not the monsters have an actual social structure is somewhat irrevelant-- they might not have those things in a Hunter only game. But building the game off of a foundation of ignorance from what you hunt? No.
Absolutely not.
You seem to me like you're coming at this from the angle that staff would be withholding knowledge to be vindictive or cruel, like people are coming into the game expecting to be able to play a Bad-Ass Monster Killer and then staff pulls their pants down and steals their toys. What a couple of us are saying, in my opinion, is that this game wouldn't be about any sort of false expectation like that. If you came there to play, it would be to have the completely different experience of being the thing that gets bumped in the night, rather than the thing that bumps. That sounds really cool to me, and I hope that helps even a little bit.
I lean towards the ignorance side, as well, but for a different reason - a Hunter/Mortals game shouldn't be beholden to what's just in the other splat books. I mean, sure, maybe one werewolf you hunt is a spirit cop, but maybe the next is just some poor bastard who got bitten by a wolf and can't control his changes - and never will be able to. I don't mind people having a baseline of information to work from, but if the WoD isn't throwing something crazy and unexpected at you, then it's not a proper game of occult horror.
Hunter presents a significant difficulty for day to day role play. People want it, people will do it, but instead of contrasting with the horror, it will emphasize the artificiality of all these Hunters hanging out in a coffee shop, or banging each other, or posing really hard about the cigarette they are smoking. It will have all the intimacy needed for horror and discovery of the X-Files or Supernatural shot with a cast of thirty main characters.
