W5 QA

[Knightingale]

Even in Hunter,where a huge chunk of the antagonists are "The Orgs" ,there's nothing stopping you from being a hunter who's leader of a corporation. One must keep in mind that the distinction between Hunter Cells and a Org is not that Hunter Cells aren't corporations and Orgs are, the distinction is that the Orgs have ulterior motives for hunting monsters.

I don't think H5 is very suitable for that setup.

1) Hunter cells are just a bunch of people with the theme of trying to do a lot with little. The distinction is that these Hunters have Drive whereas the lesser hunters in the hunter-orgs don't have Drive but are part of formal organizations with access to all sorts of resources and equipment. Having Hunter-PCs be part of an organisation comparable to the hunter-orgs isn't really in the spirit of the game as it's presented.

2) Having a Hunter-PC with Ressources 4 or 5 would really highlight the discrepancies between the Backgrounds and the Edges in the game. With the barebones writeup the Resources Background got, it's way more useful than the way the Asset-Edges are written, for example.

3) One of the weirder parts of H5 that the writing says what makes the hunter-orgs so bad are their ulterior motives but strangely when you get to what Drive mechanically represents it's the Hunter-PC's ulterior motive. The only time you interact with Drive during the game is when your character is in Despair and to get out of it, the Hunter has to achieve some ulterior goal (like finding out new details about the supernatural antagonist, acquiring resources owned by the antagonist or trying to get into the supernatural antagonist's good graces) that supersedes simply getting rid of the supernatural antagonist. I guess, the difference is then more like the hunter-orgs always have ulterior motives while Hunters with Drive only sometimes have ulterior motives.

Of course, you could do something about these things with some houserules and make some changes to how H5 works. But the setup as presented by the corebook is about playing a local hunter-cell. And I mean, with W5 one of the components of its game-setup is that the group is supposed to take care of a Caern. So, being bound to that one location is a big part of W5.

[Saur Ops Specialist]

One of the weirder parts of H5 that the writing says what makes the hunter-orgs so bad are their ulterior motives but strangely when you get to what Drive mechanically represents it's the Hunter-PC's ulterior motive. The only time you interact with Drive during the game is when your character is in Despair...

I can now only think of H5 as a game to play Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei.

[Nicolas Milioni]

hmmm... will fact check my copies of the books and look on the devs social media when i have the time,then,i suppose i could be missing something

[Manfr]

Yes, you can have clout and wealth in the mundane human world. The problem arises when you want the same power in the supernatural world, then the mechanics halt your progress.

I am glad that the system no longer treats low supernatural status the same as low human status, but unless you play a game focused on the human world you will run into the glass ceiling of WoD5 status quickly.

Uhm, this I donìt know ... As far as I've seen, there are no mechanics limiting your ascent into the supernatural world in V5 or H5: the only limitation that V5 has, when taking into account the traditional setup of high-power campaigns, is the lack of level 6+ disciplines, but level 4-5 powers and the maths of Blood Potency and Blood Surge create a clear distinction between street level characters and elders.

The fact that devs have said that game wants you to start from stree level doesn't mean you can't go further up: it means supplements are focused on the starting levels, just like dnd modules usually start from level 1.

"Fall of London" is explicitly written for Ancillae characters, and Memoriam rules do not make much sense for freshly embraced characters.

Hunters may be a bit different, as they don't have an organized society to climb, but there isn't anything forbidding them into doing so.

[Manfr]

3) One of the weirder parts of H5 that the writing says what makes the hunter-orgs so bad are their ulterior motives but strangely when you get to what Drive mechanically represents it's the Hunter-PC's ulterior motive. The only time you interact with Drive during the game is when your character is in Despair and to get out of it, the Hunter has to achieve some ulterior goal (like finding out new details about the supernatural antagonist, acquiring resources owned by the antagonist or trying to get into the supernatural antagonist's good graces) that supersedes simply getting rid of the supernatural antagonist. I guess, the difference is then more like the hunter-orgs always have ulterior motives while Hunters with Drive only sometimes have ulterior motives.

Of course, you could do something about these things with some houserules and make some changes to how H5 works. But the setup as presented by the corebook is about playing a local hunter-cell. And I mean, with W5 one of the components of its game-setup is that the group is supposed to take care of a Caern. So, being bound to that one location is a big part of W5.

Hunter Orgs are bad because they don't hunt to protect us: they hunt to maintain or accumulate power. A theme of Wod games has always been that power corrupts, and working for an Org will expose you to increasingly bad compromises: it's something that is still presented as a common situation for PCs, at least at the beginning of their careers, if I'm not mistaken.

By the way, I think that, had H5 been focused on playing Hunter Orgs members, the game would have risked a huge backlash as cop-aganda. Had they created Compacts and Conspiracies like HtV ... well, it really would have been a HtV rip-off. ^_^''

As it stands, H5 is of course quite different from both old HH and old HtR: nonetheless, if it gets adequate support, I think it could work as a fairly good setup for Buffy-esque or Supernatural-esque games.

[Ragged Robin]

Petty tangent delete plz

[Knightingale]

Hunter Orgs are bad because they don't hunt to protect us: they hunt to maintain or accumulate power. A theme of Wod games has always been that power corrupts, and working for an Org will expose you to increasingly bad compromises: it's something that is still presented as a common situation for PCs, at least at the beginning of their careers, if I'm not mistaken.

By the way, I think that, had H5 been focused on playing Hunter Orgs members, the game would have risked a huge backlash as cop-aganda. Had they created Compacts and Conspiracies like HtV ... well, it really would have been a HtV rip-off. ^_^''

As it stands, H5 is of course quite different from both old HH and old HtR: nonetheless, if it gets adequate support, I think it could work as a fairly good setup for Buffy-esque or Supernatural-esque games.

My main-issue with H5 is that it fails on its own terms. It fails to meet the goals it sets itself as a game. There’s no comparison to HtV or the old HtR even needed to find issues with how H5 presents itself.

Let’s revisit the pitch of H5 from the introduction:

That’s important: The players’ characters have Drives, creeds, and Edges. The vast majority of hunters in the orgs (and even many lone hunters) themselves do not.
The ultimate Hunter intention in this regard is to get shit done. Unburdened by the ethically compromised agendas of the orgs, Hunter cells have the advantage of operating with an integrity and independence that the larger and more structured orgs can’t.
That means the orgs themselves often function as antagonists in Hunter’s World of Darkness, or as entities that otherwise illustrate a number of Hunter themes.

“Hunters with Drive” is the signifier for the good kind of hunter that the PCs belong to and Drive is something the compromised hunters in hunter-orgs don’t have access to. Okay, if that’s the setup why does the list of available Drives for PCs include vices…? Is a random local hunter whose Drive is Greed really better than a professional hunter working for Arcanum…?

And I don’t really understand this fear of PCs being part of a bad organization… Being part of a bad organization doesn’t mean your PCs also have to be bad. That is the simplistic take of H5, though. By that logic, nobody should be playing a vampire who’s part of the Camarilla or a Garou who’s part of the Garou-Nation. (Since Sabbat is already unplayable, you would have to be an Anarch in V5 and in W5, the Garou-Nation is in shambles anyway, so I guess, it isn’t an issue there…)

Being part of a bad organization is a point of conflict with the PCs trying to be good. That is the point. And it creates more interesting drama than just having a setup where the players are in the good-guy-faction and everybody they oppose are simply bad guys.

And if the morality of Hunters with Drive versus hunters in hunter-orgs is so important to the game, why does the game have no morality-mechanic whatsoever…?! H5 looked at V5 and removed Humanity, Conviction and made Chronicle-Tenets irrelevant as a mechanic. Touchstones fared barely better. In H5 having no Touchstones is a problem, having three and losing one is completely fine. If a PC has three Touchstones and one gets murdered, the game just shrugs its shoulders. Oh, and if a PC-Hunter decides to kill innocent Bystanders because that will help them in avoiding the attention of the supernatural antagonist, the game will just shrug again. For a game whose narrative is so set on talking about morality, in terms of mechanics it is setting up the complete opposite.

Of course, in terms of W5 this matters insofar as the same team that gave us H5 is also responsible for W5.

[Ana Mizuki]

Uhm, this I donìt know ... As far as I've seen, there are no mechanics limiting your ascent into the supernatural world in V5 or H5: the only limitation that V5 has, when taking into account the traditional setup of high-power campaigns, is the lack of level 6+ disciplines, but level 4-5 powers and the maths of Blood Potency and Blood Surge create a clear distinction between street level characters and elders.

Yet there is the Beckoning and the Jyhad war. If you grow too powerful, you feel drawn to a war raging all around the world. A war that the PCs can't join in at all. That is what I mean by the limits because VtM did not have such a limit to how old or how far the PCs could climb. There was no off-screen war raging on that the PCs could not join.

With hunters, it is good to remember what exactly a hunter is. Someone who kills supernaturals, who does not consider the monster as worthy of personhood. But everyone has a reason WHY they hunt beyond the basics. Essentially, hunters are not the good guys. So it seems strange to say that a larger organization such as the Society of Leopold is somehow worse than a bunch of dudes who gather to hunt people. The former has centuries of experience and knowledge in hunting monsters effectively and correctly. The latter is doing a lot of guesswork and might kill people by mistake easier.

[Ragged Robin]

Ìts probably worth noting that absolute disdain for large scale institutions is a juvenile outlook and ultimatly self defeating. We're told the second inquisition doesn't care about humanity but they're currently far more of a net positive than reckoning hunters

[Ana Mizuki]

Ìts probably worth noting that absolute disdain for large scale institutions is a juvenile outlook and ultimatly self defeating. We're told the second inquisition doesn't care about humanity but they're currently far more of a net positive than reckoning hunters

That and let's face it, no matter what motive the animal control officer has, taking out rabid animals is still a good thing. Just because the SI might not have the best intentions, in terms of human safety they are still taking out things that can and will hurt and hunt humans.

[Knightingale]

Ìts probably worth noting that absolute disdain for large scale institutions is a juvenile outlook and ultimatly self defeating. We're told the second inquisition doesn't care about humanity but they're currently far more of a net positive than reckoning hunters

Even beyond that... What exactly does "local hunter cell vs hunter-org" even add to the game...? The local hunters aren't part of these hunter-orgs, they're not trying to change those hunter-orgs, they're not trying to eliminate those hunter-orgs... So why is H5 so insistent on elevating this antagonistic relationship between the two?! They occasionally cross paths in their exploits to hunt supernatural enemies. The hunter-orgs do their own thing and probably have their own strategic goals that are different from a local hunter-cell. And that's about it. The more natural premise is "low-powered local hunter-cell vs powerful supernatual antagonist". The number of H5 campaigns that put a focus on "local hunter-cell vs Second Inquisition" is probably close to zero.

Due to the title one assumption would be to think this is a new take on the Imbued, looking at V5 you might assume this is the game where you play a member of the Second Inquisition and with the actual premise the focus is revealed to be on local hunter-cells. But for whatever reason, one of the things the game focuses on is to contrast local hunter-cells as "good mortal hunters" compared to the "bad mortal hunters" in hunter-orgs.

[AnubisXy]

Yeah, for the most part I don't see Hunter Orgs too interested in the local hunter cells, except for when the local hunter cell screws up some big plan. "Hey cowboy, that vampire you killed last night? He was friends with 5 others and they were going to have a meeting tomorrow night. We had a bomb set to blow them all to kingdom come, but since you killed one now the other five are spooked, have gone to ground and that meeting is canceled. Thanks for fucking nothing."

Or maybe a scenario where the Hunter Org decides to use the local hunter cell as bait, or they engage in some public attack and then pin the action on the local hunters. But really, I don't see the two groups interacting much or coming to blows.

Likewise I don't really see scenarios where hunter cells are interested in hunter orgs except, again, when they get blamed for something the hunter org did or if the hunter org screws up their plans.

[Ragged Robin]

I actually imagine hunter orgs probably tacitly approve of local hunter cells on a number of levels. Even if their motivations are purely cynical they're useful in keeping the pressure up on kindred for example.

[AnubisXy]

I actually imagine hunter orgs probably tacitly approve of local hunter cells on a number of levels. Even if their motivations are purely cynical they're useful in keeping the pressure up on kindred for example.

Yeah. I imagine it generally depends on the org in question though. I could see the independent orgs like the Arcanum or the Society of Leopold mostly approving of, or at least not really caring too much about local hunter cells, as long as those guys aren't getting too much underfoot. You might even have some open sharing of data or information between those orgs and those hunters. But then you have those orgs that are affiliated with governments, and they probably don't care much for independent hunters causing chaos. Even if individual agents are cheering for those independent hunters, as a whole the organization wouldn't approve, and any ties agents had to local hunter cells would have to be kept on the downlow.

That said, even with government affiliated Second Inquisition groups, I really doubt that they would ever actually target a hunter cell, unless those hunters really screwed up, like killing a vampire in the middle of a television interview in front of a live studio audience and the SI is forced to step in and clean up and decides it's best if those hunters don't ever do something like that again.

[Manfr]

Yet there is the Beckoning and the Jyhad war. If you grow too powerful, you feel drawn to a war raging all around the world. A war that the PCs can't join in at all. That is what I mean by the limits because VtM did not have such a limit to how old or how far the PCs could climb. There was no off-screen war raging on that the PCs could not join.

With hunters, it is good to remember what exactly a hunter is. Someone who kills supernaturals, who does not consider the monster as worthy of personhood. But everyone has a reason WHY they hunt beyond the basics. Essentially, hunters are not the good guys. So it seems strange to say that a larger organization such as the Society of Leopold is somehow worse than a bunch of dudes who gather to hunt people. The former has centuries of experience and knowledge in hunting monsters effectively and correctly. The latter is doing a lot of guesswork and might kill people by mistake easier.

Well, the Beckoning and the Gehenna War are a narrative tool, not a real mechanic: you can use them to leverage power levels as you see fit. In all the sourcebooks we see some elders leaving, some others resisting with some shenanigans (usually nefarious, such as diablerie), or apparently unaffected.

As for the Gehenna War, well ... actually we're given a good base to run something set there. The Camarilla sourcebook has 12 pages directly detailing the dynamics of the Gehenna War, which also features in the Banu Haquim writeup and, in Chicago by Night, in the Lasombra writeup. The Camarilla sourcebook also has basic descriptions of various cities which are on the frontline of the conflict.

The Sabbat sourcebook actually enlarges the scenery of the Gehenna War and makes it more player-facing, as fronts of the War are as varied as the jungles of South America, the steppes of Russia and everywhere an Ancient might stir (this might also tie in nicely with the strange elder things arising in Chicago and its neighborhoods, like Nerissa and the entity in the "diying fields" scenario).

So, we are surely lacking a dedicated sourcebook, but besides what we are told in the V5 corebook, there's other material with which you can make your players "live" the Beckoning and the Gehenna War.

As for Hunter Orgs, well ... Hunters of the "HtR" book are framed as the Good Guys. Since VtM 1st edition, the Society of Leopold has always been casted as a bunch of religious fanatics using torture: of all the various Orgs presented in HtR and which tie in with existing lore, only the Arcanum and Orpheus were ever painted as neutral-to-goodish guys, the others were always a bunch of authoritarian and paranoid assholes. So, I wouldn't say their work makes for a net positive.