Hunter's Horrors

[Dataweaver]

Chronicles of Darkness (the rulebook) has a number of systems in it that see more use in one gameline than another; for instance, the Investigation rules, while suitable for any gameline, are particularly handy in Mage. In a similar fashion, I'd like to see its Horror system (pp.140–148) go front and center in H2e.

“There are more things in Heaven and on Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

In particular, Is like to see H2e embrace the notion that monsters defy easy classification. There are vampires that are not Kindred (including, but not limited to, the kinds found in Night Horrors: the Wicked Dead); there are werewolves who are not Uratha; witches and warlocks who are not among the Awakened; reanimated corpses that are not Prometheans. At present, we know of at least four distinct kinds of beings with equally strong claims to be called “demons”, only one of which is the Unchained. While there should be guidelines for using the Horror system to approximate the other gamelines, those guidelines should make it clear that the creatures that they represent very likely are not the protagonists of the other gamelines, and that the differences that exist can be chalked up to that fact at least as easily as they can be blamed on hunter ignorance or sketchy rules.

And then there are vampire-ish Horrors that aren't precisely vampires, and likewise for the other lines: for every Horror that hews closely to one of the other gamelines' archtypes, there's a Horror that doesn't. And H2e should emphasize that sheer diversity of monsters that hunters confront.

Leave it to Contagion Chronicle to address the interaction between hunters and the actual protagonists of the other gamelines — and maybe also leave it to CC to point out that Hunter's Horrors can and do appear in the other gamelines, even the ones that inspired a particular kind of Horror: Kindred can and do encounter non-Kindred vampires; etc. Whenever a Night Horrors book showcases a monster that doesn't fit the source game's expectations, that's potentially a Hunter Horror.

Thoughts?

[Sith_Happens]

Fully in favor, and if the new preview is anything to go by it seems that at least most of this is actually going to be the case.

[Ruger]

Hunter has always has always been upfront with giving you the option to fight vampires that arn't Vampires, werewolves that arn't Werewolves, witches that arn't Mages etc, etc. That is kinda why they had such a detailed Dread Power system in the books and updates. While it is great having the mechanics to fight things that arn't the other game line's protagonist, they kinda have to have a decent amount of mention in the Hunter book simply due to how Hunter works (and seems to still work). Hunters tend to have different endowments for each target, and even with the build-an-endowment system showcased earlier we seem to be getting plenty of examples of abilities. Just to use TFV as an example, they have special wooden bullets that can pierce a Vampire's heart, a grenade that stops a Werewolf from changing, and another set of grenades and bullets that lets them kill spirits and ghost effectively. If you don't mention these specialized abilities, or what each faction thinks about each of the major splats, and every other major part of Hunter/Other Splat interaction in the main book, then the CC would have to be 50% Hunter stuff to make up for it. Hunter-Monster interactions are fundamentally different than Monster-Monster interactions. It would be hard to avoid addressing Hunter-Vampire related issues when the acting leader of one major group is a ghoul, they are funding another major group to use as a hit-squad against their enemies, and a minor group of crazy people is tied deeply to them.

In the end, the diversity of the Hunter's targets is greater if they don't go out of their way to avoid mentioning interactions with the other game line's protagonist and foes. Removing enemies makes the pool of enemies smaller. Many Hunter groups are unavoidably tied to their prey, and all the groups are making it into the book. How they did it in the first book was great, integrating the unusual enemies in the fluff next to the usual suspects while making it clear you can make whatever enemies you please. I don't see the book benefiting from minimum focus on the other splats' characters.

[Dataweaver]

I'm not saying that Hunter should say that hunters seldom interact with the other gamelines' protagonists (though the Mage developer tends to take this position with respect to Hunter/Mage interactions); rather, I'm saying that the default position with respect to other gamelines should be “Horrors generally don't represent Kindred, Uratha, Awakened, or any of the other protagonists of other gamelines — which is not to say that hunters don't hunt them; they do, and you can get further details about how they interact in Contagion Chronicle.” That doesn't mean that you can't have a ghoul leading a conspiracy, etc.; but neither do you need to give game stats for said leader. And the Cainite conspiracy may not have much of anything to do with the Kindred; it may well be that the majority of vampires that they deal with are of the non-Kindred persuasion.

[Ruger]

I'm not saying that Hunter should say that hunters seldom interact with the other gamelines' protagonists (though the Mage developer tends to take this position with respect to Hunter/Mage interactions); rather, I'm saying that the default position with respect to other gamelines should be “Horrors generally don't represent Kindred, Uratha, Awakened, or any of the other protagonists of other gamelines — which is not to say that hunters don't hunt them; they do, and you can get further details about how they interact in Contagion Chronicle.” That doesn't mean that you can't have a ghoul leading a conspiracy, etc.; but neither do you need to give game stats for said leader. And the Cainite conspiracy may not have much of anything to do with the Kindred; it may well be that the majority of vampires that they deal with are of the non-Kindred persuasion.

Again, the thing is you can't really talk about Hunters without explaining how they interact with other supernatural. Without explaining their interactions with werewolves, the Bear Lodge is just a hunt club. They never really stated up other gameline's monsters in the main books (since the player might not have the other books, Hunter is meant to be playable standalone). Trying to take the focus from Hunters off the other books doesn't really work when most of the Hunters explicitly want to kill the other game line's protagonist.

You don't really gain anything from saying Horrors usually arn't the other book's protagonist/antagonist. The usual "this system can be used to represent monsters found in other books, but are not meant to replace them. If you have Vampire and want to use that for your Vampire antagonist go ahead" works fine. It can be used to represent other monsters, it can be used to represent main book monsters if you don't have the books handy. It may be that Cainite fight non Vampire vampires, but it certainly doesn't seem that way given the owls. Likewise, those spirit guys can't really fight non-werewolf werewolves since they don't deal with spirits the same way Werewolves do. That mage/hunter interaction thing always tends to annoy Hunter fans :P.