Hunter the Vigil

Hunter the Vigil by White Wolf is my personal latest RPG. It looks like a really good system. If you're familiar with the World of Darkness then hunter plays much like that - except with many different rules for making certain things cheaper. Merits like Status now confer other merits as bonuses for gaining them. Or there are powers such as Professional Training which is a specialized form of contacts that also slowly grows your ability to grow a small set of skills. It also gives a large set of rules for using Willpower in creative ways or going insane as your hunter goes down in morality. Or new powers based on the faith of the hunter. But other than that - the hunters are completely normal mortals. (OK - it looks like a long list - but in reality their powers are: the ability to Risk willpower to get some extra effects - small, the ability to spend merits on either making skills/merits cost less, and access to merits which are POWERS. The powers are REALLY strange - to the point it makes hunters in some way Supernatural - I'll get to that in a second).OK - for the most part I really like all of the new rules. It levels the playing field between Hunters and Vampires. The new rules for Demons also make Hunters able to deal with another set of supernaturals - and the demons really do have a "cool factor" to them. I love the concept of Elder Demons slowly burning the people they possess to a crisp. It's REALLY cool. But - at the same time - the powers given to a Hunter mixed with the actual WEAKNESS of a demon (they are NOT a strong race of beings - unless you actually give them powers. I'd say that Greater Demons REQUIRE some EXP - Elders are scarey enough and lessers should be lesser - but that's pointless). But a hunter without any EXP may be able to take a vampire - but in all likelyhood - the vampire will simply tell him to drink his blood until the hunter is addicted - and a ghoul and toady. Or the vampire will use super strength to kill the hunter - or strike from invisible shadows - or stir fear in his mind until the hunter is curled up on the floor. All in all - the hunter is powerless without some boost. Endowments and upgraded merits allow this boost. And keep the power scales similar. Werewolves and Mages of course can smear a hunter - unless it's a strong hunter and a weak werewolf/mage. Now - the rules for making creatures in the book also make them weaker - but I'll ignore that for core races.

So - the real problem is the flavour. The crunchy bits are great - but the flavour is disgusting. The notion that there's a secret faction of the American government which deals with creatures such as vampires or ghouls - WHAT?! Let's just give them ray guns to make it make sense... Oh wait - they did! There's a secret group of British pharmacists which harvests werewolf parts to steal their healing factor. That there's a group of Relic hunters from Atlantis who are hunter artifacts to take on the mages who broke the Silver Ladder (that last bit is assumed flavour). There's a secret arm of the Catholic Church who fights vampires?

Honestly! COME ON! This is World of Darkness - not Men in Black. The different Compacts and Conspiracies do not appeal to me at all - the whole second and third teirs of hunters are against the entire point. Vampires haven't been that careless in the Masquerade as to let the American Government find out about them without memory modification. And - to make it worse - the government didn't tell anyone. It MIGHT make sense of the Masquerade to be breached - it doesn't make sense for people to not mentioned it to anyone - I mean - "oh hey - vampires are real" isn't something you keep secret - you go out of your way to institute pulse checks amongst the general population. The only group I can think of who would ACTUALLY manage to keep a secret is likely the Ashwood Abbey (who are just too... nuts... to care). EXCEPT their recruitment policy would lead to a leak eventually.

Anyway - enough complaints. On to the crunchy. Hunters in my own game will have access to all the normal merits - except status in a compact or conspriacy. They will however have access to Endowments. Firstly - Elixer merit requires occult/academics dots. In order to use the merit - you need to make elixers - it's simply a matter of ingredients - making them will be annoying. Benedictions (other than Boon of Lazarus) will be offered to Hunters who DON'T buy down their morality (and have a virtue of Faith unless they can explain why NOT) - and need to maintain their morality. Hunters who DO buy down their morality by two can get access to Castigations (buy downs still give EXP - yes they restrict benedictions - but giving bonuses for high morality is good). Relics will ALWAYS be allowed - but getting new ones requires in-story justification - be it defeating a mage - or going digging in Mayan Pyramids. Advanced Armoury DOESN'T exist (since - you see - it doesn't exist - that and - Twilight is a magic stat - you don't make Archanidiodes and say it works). Thaumatechnology is the domain of the Free Council (the mage group) - and then - only maybe. They don't need it - having access to magic - but they MIGHT give it away to Hunters - if the hunters like mages.

This will be a Moral Dilemia I am going to put in the path of my Hunters. The game assumes hunters hates "witches" or "warlocks" or "sorcerers" or "necromancers" - but I don't exactly see why. Despite their completely different view of the world - they are still quite human - as human as a Hunter with access to Benedictions.

Now - Definition wise - what is a benediction. A benediction by the rules is "Christian Magic". I don't like the concept - I like to detatch modern religions from games. It's mostly polite. I am a Christian who takes some pride in his offensive nature - but still - it doesn't mean I need to offend without purpose. I am also not going to put Islamic Drug Addicts into my game (erm I mean Ascending Ones). White Wolf seems to have little to no sensitivity to religions - it also tends to go out of it's way to offend gamers with warnings like "Don't Drink Real Blood" - if we're NOT crazy we don't care - if we ARE crazy we don't care. LAY OFF! Bah. But anyway - I am going to say that Benedictions are Powers of Belief - it someone is to believe strongly enough in a Divinity or a cause - if it is pure - it will be granted. This means that it could be a Priest who did it OR a Rabbi OR just some dude who thought that there had to be SOME sort of way to destroy these Ghosts. Castigations are different. You spend so much time gazing into the Abyss - it is gazing into you. You need to then stare it down. Castigations are the powers one gains from Knowing Too Much or simply drawing the attentions of demons. A willpower of at least 6 is required to gain Castigations (expensive at character creation but hey).

Finally - one of the things I am going to Outright Change will be how Morality is bought. Someone mentioned this to me and I think it's an important rule. Morality costs New Dots * 1 EXP. This means that shifting up and down in morality will actually happen rather than a simple downward spiral. At the same time - it requires A LOT of justification to go up in morality.