Author: Bruce Baugh, E. Jonathan Bennett, Carl Bowen, Ken Cliffe, Greg Fountain, Geoffrey Grabowski, Jess Heinig, Ed Hall, Robert Scott Martin, Angel McCoy, Jim Moore, Wayne Peacock, Greg Stolze, Richard Stratton, Stewart Wieck.
Category: game
Company/Publisher: White Wolf Game Studio
Line: Hunter
Cost: $29.95
Page count: 302 pages
ISBN: 1-56504-735-4
SKU: WW8100
Capsule Review by Bill Kte'pi on 02/29/00.
Genre tags: Fantasy Modern_day Horror

Go buy this book

.

All right, the important part's out of the way. Now comes the bit where I dance around for awhile, because unfortunately, my pen is not yet so famous that it'll sell a thousand books with a single stroke.

Chances are, you've read a review of Hunter already. After all, it's been out since November. If you're on alt.games.white-wolf, you've probably followed some of the threads there about it. But maybe you're like most gamers -- you don't go out and buy a book right away, especially the core rules for a new game (even if it is a game connected to the ones you might already play). You either don't have the money, or the motivation. Good. Fine. I'm the same way. There aren't many games I rush out to buy, because I usually can't.

This one I did. So should you. There's a simple, selfish reason why: because if you spend money on this game, White Wolf will continue to support it. Obvious enough, right? But really, think about it. If you know anything about White Wolf's games, it's that they tend to get better the more supplements come out (I say "tend to" because of course not every supplement improves the game). Supplements come out and add to the texture and overall picture of the game -- and eventually, a second edition comes out, delighting some, pissing off others. Perversely enough, I'm already looking forward to Hunter's second edition -- not because it needs one right now, of course, but because I'm dying to see what changes.

All right, I know, I sound like a fanboy, so I'll try to shut up and just focus on the meat here.

If You Play White Wolf Games...

... then you should definitely play this one. Honestly, Hunter has amazing potential which I think isn't obvious the first time you read through the rules. It's like suddenly seeing the World of Darkness with a new set of eyes. Remember those "decoders" they used to have with Cap'n Crunch? The back of the box would have a hidden message behind a red design -- you put on red glasses and suddenly, bam, there's the message. Hunter is like that. You could potentially consider nearly any supplement ever put out for any White Wolf game (excepting only Wraith, and some of Mage) a supplement for Hunter -- except totally different. This is the way to breathe new life into old ideas.

The characters in Hunter aren't centuries-old vampires, or werewolves in their umpteenth incarnation, or willworkers who reshape reality. They're just regular folks. Librarians. Construction workers. High school students. Housewives. Except that suddenly, a few weeks ago (that's right, a few weeks ago -- PCs are supposed to be very new to the "job"), they realized that the monsters are real. And all of a sudden they could do something about it -- but not much. Maybe they can grab a baseball bat and give a beast-man a good beating. Maybe all they can do is shout "no!" and stop a rotting corpse from feeding off of a newborn baby. Maybe all they can do is watch as their world falls prey to the monsters.

These aren't the conspirators or mystics of the other games. Most importantly, Hunters don't really know what they are. They're still human -- their ability to perceive supernatural beings doesn't pick up on other hunters, unless those hunters are currently using their powers -- but the Messengers who revealed the world of the monsters to them are -- maybe -- acting through them somehow. Why? The Hunters don't know. Neither do we. I'm assuming a lot of the missing explanations will be supplied or hinted at in future supplements, but they're not necessary. The whole point of the game is that the PCs don't know, and if they don't know, the GM doesn't really need to, either.

There's a LOT of potential in a game like this where the PCs are so in the dark. Think about it. When was the last time you played a character who had no idea what was going on? That makes everything a challenge -- and more to the point, everything becomes an opportunity for real roleplaying.

A GM can have great fun with a longtime gaming group and Hunter. Every munchkiny player creation now becomes fair game for the GM to use. A Mokole Abomination with hedge magic? All right. Go beat him up. Mummified Red Talon? Guess who's on the rampage in the museum. I don't recommend this kind of thing on a regular basis, but a "Creature Feature" can make a great one-off session, and is a neat way to introduce your players to the game.

Honestly, now that Wraith is gone, Hunter strikes me as the most intriguing of White Wolf's games -- aside from Mage, which always receives special dispensation from me in statements like that. It's probably going to change the way I roleplay -- and I can't say that about too many games.

If You Don't Play White Wolf Games...

... there's probably a reason. Maybe you couldn't stomach the idea of playing a monster. Maybe the idea of turning the tables like that just didn't appeal to you. Maybe, like my fiancee, you just prefer playing characters closer to home -- characters who are still "real people," not archmages or fairies or dead. Or maybe the style of roleplaying you associate with the other games -- politicking, in-fighting, metaphysics -- isn't your thing.

Hunter is for you. Again, hunters are just plain folks -- this can't be stressed enough. You could play yourself if you wanted to -- how would you react if you suddenly realized your apartment manager was a rotting corpse? Or imagine you're in math class, dozing off as always, when suddenly the chalk writing on the board rearranges itself to read "HE IS ONE OF THEM." No one else seems to notice -- but your math teacher looks ... wrong. What do you do?

See, from a player's perspective, the great thing about Hunter is that everything you need to know about the game -- everything -- can be summed up in a couple of sentences. You're a regular person, except that a few weeks ago (at the most), you received a message that no one else seemed to be aware of. Along with the message came the sudden ability to perceive things that are wrong with the world -- monsters who walk among us unnoticed by all. These monsters seem to have a great deal of influence and are often in positions of power. Only you can stop them, but no one would ever believe you if you told them.

There. You're ready to play. If you can't get into that character, you're just not trying.

In case it needs to be said, let me stress something: this is not a combat game. If that's what you want, you can certainly use it as one, but it probably won't last long. Special sight or not, a werewolf can just plain shred a librarian. That's not what this is about. Hunter is still about horror -- the horror of realizing things aren't right. Remember the Twilight Zone with William Shatner? In Twilight Zone: the Movie it was John Lithgow. There was a monkeybeast out on the wing of the plane -- but no one believed him. In Hunter, the monkeybeasts are everywhere. They're running for mayor, commanding the Armed Forces, living next door to you, delivering your paper, teaching pre-school, and delivering babies. No one will ever believe you, there are too many of them for you to ever stop them, and when they cart you off to the asylum at the end of the episode, no one's going to suddenly discover evidence that the plane really was tampered with.

All Right, Fine, So What's in the Book?

I know, I've slobbered enough. Okay. The best thing about the book is that so much of it is written in-character. There's enough that's objective, so you as the GM know certain things for sure (or at least understand the game mechanics of things, and understand the difference between what the PCs don't know and what you don't know), but most of it is written by various Hunters, most of them more experienced than the PCs will be when the game starts. It gives you a great feel for what their world is actually like -- and how they see the World of Darkness that many of us are so jaded to. This is really the only way the game could have worked -- this immersion in the first few chapters in the hearts and minds of the Hunters.

There's the usual amount of time spent on game mechanics, but since Hunter doesn't have an extensive cosmology built in, there's more room to discuss the flavor, which is key. The Antagonists chapter is also important -- after all, moreso than any other game, that's what Hunter is all about. And even though they're all covered in their own books, this chapter is from the Hunter perspective -- these aren't Vampires and Changelings, they're Rots and Goblins. And man, they're creepy.

Hunters do have their own "special powers," except that they don't seem to come from the Hunters, exactly. Or, if they do, they must be something any human could potentially do -- since, as noted, Hunters are not supernatural beings. My theory is that the Messengers -- the mysterious beings whose messages awaken Hunters to the world around them -- are somehow lending their power to the Hunters, but it's just a theory. Anyway, these special powers are called Edges in game terms. They correspond to Creeds, which are the game's closest thing to splats, but honestly, you can ignore everything it says about Creeds if you don't like the idea. They're purely a game mechanic, like archetypes. The important thing is simply to focus on how your character approaches the Hunt. Edges are pretty easy to handle, and PCs don't get very many of them at start. They also have Conviction, a trait which fuels most of the special things they can do (like their immunity to mind control).

I've been thinking recently that this game could be done without the Edges, and just with Conviction, for a really close-to-the-bone Hunter. There's no place for that in a review, so I'll save it for my column. But the point is, this is a very flexible game. The emphasis really is on roleplaying. I mean, imagine playing Mage without spheres, or AD&D without spells.

Anything Wrong With It?

Not really, not as far as I'm concerned. Are there things other people might like? Possibly. For one, you may not like the lack of certainty. Not only do the PCs not know what's going on, the GM doesn't know. Where do Hunters' powers come from? Who are the Messengers? You don't know. You can make it up if you want, but of course there probably is an "official" explanation forthcoming from White Wolf eventually. Does it really matter? Probably not. The PCs aren't likely to ever be in a position where they'd find out.

What about, well, the hunting? I mean, essentially, this is a game about folks "taking back the night -- one monster at a time" (so sayeth the ad copy). But ... we know from the other games that not all monsters are actually monsters. Do all the PCs from your other White Wolf campaigns (if you've had any) deserve to be hunted down and killed? Are all vampires and werewolves necessarily evil? What about mages? They aren't singled out, but they are on the enemies list.

Assume that all these things do deserve to die. Fine. Is this the way to go about it? There's a certain vigilante or even lynch mob mentality at work here, and some people may have a problem with that. After all, the characters are supposed to be "real" people -- and in real life, vigilantism isn't heroic. And yes, as has been pointed out in response to this, the other games are about playing actual monsters, for Pete's sake -- how can you be okay with that and have a problem with playing the folks who hunt them down, no matter what their methods?

The difference is simple. Vampire: the Masquerade portrays vampires as monsters. There's no attempt to deny it. There's no insistence that they're "right." Hunter doesn't take a similar attitude to Hunters, though. They're right -- and being right is a dangerous thing. Personally, I think this is an interesting thing to roleplay -- but as I say, some people may have issues.

Of course, not every game has to involve killing, or attempting to kill, the various monsters in the world. There are Redeemers in the game, members of a Creed who want to make monsters, well, stop being monsters. But c'mon. The game is called Hunter -- not Therapist. "The Reckoning". You don't "take back the night" gently -- you do it by force. That's what the game is about, and there's really no way to deny that.

These aren't really things I have problems with; I mention them because they're common complaints, and because they do have merit. Me, I like some moral ambiguity in my games -- and the idea that the guys finally taking down the monsters might not be white hats after all, and that the Messengers might not even be benevolent ... well, that suits me. It is the World of Darkness, after all.

Style: 5 (Excellent!)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)