It’s been several weeks now since I purchased The Nocturnal sourcebook for Hunter. I’ve put off writing a review of it, both due to personal responsibilities and because after my initial read-through of the book I was less-than-impressed with the book, causing my first write-up of this review to be rather harsh. Having put it aside for a while and then rereading it after perusing several Vampire books, I find it wasn’t as bad as I initially thought, though I still don’t believe it’s a “must-have” book by any means.
The Nocturnal, like The Walking Dead sourcebook, is designed to be used with the Hunter Storyteller Companion so that a Storyteller can portray members of a supernatural race without buying the World of Darkness rulebook associated with them. The Nocturnal is the vampire sourcebook, and combined with the Hunter Storyteller Companion it’s supposed to be all you need to run vampires in a Hunter campaign. Please note that there is some reprinting of material in Nocturnal from HSC, but it’s only a few paragraphs, so if you bought the Companion just for vampire info you won’t feel like you wasted your money if you buy the Nocturnal.
I’m going to start by commenting on the art of this book. I was disappointed with the art, but in this case it was not because of a lack of quality work on the part of the artists. Rather, the vast majority of the artwork seemed out-of-place in a Hunter sourcebook about vampires, seeming more appropriate for a Vampire: The Masquerade sourcebook about bloodsuckers. The surplus of gaunt, trying-to-look-uber-hip individuals in this book seems far from the average joe concept Hunter is supposed to be about. It also didn’t help that two pieces of art in this book (on pages 26 &74) look as though they’re leftover art originally commissioned for a Mage sourcebook---not a slam on the quality of the pics; it’s just that they seem very, very out of place in a Hunter book. If these pics had been in a Vampire or Mage release I’d be very impressed by them. But in a Hunter book they stuck out like a sore thumb in need of an ice pack. Oh, well, at least I got to practice my Chinese looking at several of the illustrations....
The Prologue fiction of the book didn’t impress me, if only because it’s written with the main character describing events directly to the reader. I don’t believe any other Hunter RPG book has told a story in this manner, instead being written in a voyeuristic manner as the reader views Hunter communications and documents. Personally, I only enjoy such direct narration in comedy works or so over-the-top they’re funny detective story. If you don’t mind such a narration, however, you’ll probably enjoy the tale, which focuses on a Hermit & established Hunter Cabbie22
The Introduction of the book sums up what the book is about. There’s a brief summary of what each chapter is about, though said summaries don’t always exactly match up with what’s presented in each chapter. The recommended reading and viewing list provided seems to be the same recommended reading & viewing list found on the White Wolf website in the Vampire submissions guidelines. Reading over the list I was amused that the Masters of Swipage at White Wolf were apparently disturbed by similarities between their products and the first Blade movie. I was only familiar with three of the twenty-two references provided, and I had to laugh as according to the author of this list I have “something wrong” with me for not liking three of the movies on this list. It feels good to not be part of the target White Wolf audience sometimes.
Chapter One is the journal a man is keeping for his probation officer, and in the course of keeping the log he is imbued and learns of his employer’s bloodsucking nature. In my opinion the chapter suffered from two major problems, both of which prevented me from enjoying it.
The first problem is the way the personality of the main character is presented. The author seems to have been trying to show the Messengers don’t always imbue the nicest of people. I understand & respect that idea, but it seemed as though the author was trying too hard to show how “bad” the protagonist is. The amount of needless potty talk coming out of the character’s mouth made the chapter seem like an excerpt from a Kevin Smith screenplay; perhaps not-so-coincidentally, the chapter illustrations of the Hunter bear a fair resemblance to Silent Bob. Also, a comment occasionally comes out of nowhere (such as when the Hunter casually dismisses a former associate’s death from AIDS-related complications) as if only to remind the reader the character is an ass.
The second problem revolves around the Hunter’s imbuing. A Hunter becomes a Hunter by taking action in some manner when the Messengers confront him with the truth about the world & its supernatural inhabitants, whether it be by attacking them, communicating with them, or trying to understand them. If no action is taken the person becomes a Bystander, who has almost none of the abilities that a Hunter has. The “Hunter” of this tale does nothing but accept his severance check when the truth about his employer is revealed, but he still becomes a Hunter. Granted, it is possible for a Bystander to have the abilities the Hunter of this tale employs, but the introduction to the book specifies the protagonist of this tale is a Hunter, so it bugged me as much as if a person became a werewolf in a Werewolf: The Apocalypse game because a Garou bit him, or if a person became a Kindred in Vampire because they wore goth clothes and slept during the day.
Chapter Two, according to the introduction, “Explores a possible hunter first contact with vampires, and the creatures’ awareness of mortal failings and fears.”
Well, not really. It’s more like an unidentified Hunter found the website log of another unidentified Hunter, who had been hired to spy on a group of Hunters, who have already made first contact with a bloodsucker. It’s pretty obvious who/what hired the spying Hunter, and as for the group he spies on...I’ll put it this way: if you watched The Blair Witch Project and found the protagonists realistic characters who behaved like real people you’ll probably enjoy this chapter. If you saw the film and felt the main characters were unrealistic, stupid, whining brats who you would have personally handed over to the Blair Witch if she gave you a twenty, you’ll probably hate this chapter. I fall into the latter category.
Chapter Three is, well, you’re not supposed to know what it’s about. It may be a recording of the babblings of a staked vampire (even though several books, including this one, say vampires who are staked are totally paralyzed) as he rambles on about becoming a vamp, his activities as a bloodsucker, his encounters with Hunters, and other things. A page of text is written by the recipient of the taped dialogue, with reasons why it could or couldn’t be a “real” recording of a vampire.
Frankly, I could have done without this chapter. There’s very little information in this section that can be used by either players or Storytellers. A reviewer on another website commented that several recent Hunter releases had fiction sections that seemed like they should have been in some sort of fiction anthology, rather than a sourcebook designed to be used with the RPG, as they contributed very little or nothing to the sourcebook they were in. This is the first time I agree with that reviewer in that opinion, though I’m not certain this chapter would even deserve inclusion in an anthology, as I found it totally unentertaining.
Chapter Four is the flip side of the first chapter, told from the perspective of the vampire and his servant. After being so disappointed with chapter one I was surprised with how much I liked this chapter. In fact, this chapter is without doubt my favorite section of this book. Well-written, it tells the tale from the bloodsucking fiend perspective, and when the section covers the interaction between bloodsuckers it’s done very well, managing to make things nice and clear, without the need to have ever read a Vampire book. It also harkens back to the Creedbooks, with information being shown as different documents in varying fonts; I’m rather fond of that.
I could find only two flaws with this chapter. First, there is a very small section in which the information seems to be presented from an omniscient viewpoint, which seemed odd, given that the other information in the chapter is presented from various characters’ limited viewpoints, as most other Hunter books have done. The second flaw of the chapter comes at the very end of the chapter, where the head vampire goes into a round of self-pitying that is sharply at odds with the self-confident way the vampire is portrayed in the rest of the chapter. I’ve always had trouble with White Wolf’s attempts to portray vamps as angsty/self-loathing/tragic entities, as 100% of the time when I’ve read Vampire descriptions in White Wolf books it always seemed like the angst/self-loathing/tragic nature were arbitrarily tacked on, in a miserable attempt to hide the fact that vampires are self-absorbed monsters who prey on humanity. If I had never read a Vampire book and had read this chapter I would have been scratching my head after the end of this chapter and saying “What the hell is his problem? Is he bi-polar or something?” I was probably bothered at this fact even more after The Walking Dead sourcebook for Hunter, where a small bit was devoted to actively making fun of the angsty/self-loathing/tragic bloodsucker, and which I’d hoped was a sign such a take on vampires would not appear in the Hunter line.
And, of course, the fact the dialogue of the vamp in his whiny moment was a mirror image to the dialogue I’d heard in a Buffy rerun a day before didn’t help my enjoyment. This was the second of two White Wolf books I read in as many weeks that gave me Buffy deja vu; never a good sign.
Chapter Five is a continuation of Chapter two. It’s better than Chapter Two, but still not my cup of tea.
Chapter Six ties in somewhat to Chapter Three, though the linkage between the two is not the main focus of the chapter. The protagonist of the chapter comes off a poor carbon copy of Doctor 119, which reduced my enjoyment of this section somewhat. I also had some problems with the ending of the story, but other readers may not; it all depends on how you interpret Conviction and the way it protects Hunters.
Chapter Seven is the rules portion of the book. When I first read through this chapter I thought it was okay, though I did have problems with a few sections of it. But, as I mentioned earlier, in-between my writing of my initial review and the one you are now reading I was able to peruse several Vampire books. After reading those books and rereading this chapter I find some of the rules portions very...perplexing.
I will start by saying I was very impressed by the way the author(s) of this chapter described vampire society. It was very detailed; easily enough for a Hunter Storyteller to run bloodsuckers, but no so much that you felt like you were reading a Vampire sourcebook. The section on running vamps (personality & activity-wise) also impressed me, for two reasons. First, it actually focuses on vampire blood drinking and the way most modern vampire stories gloss over this fact of vampire “life” as a minor detail. Second, it avoids the problem certain recent Hunter books have had where authors have written rules/storytelling sections where their personal feelings/opinions show. In this section several options or takes are presented on certain issues, with no side being given weight in favor of it. I liked that.
As far as the “portraying a vampire” sections go, I will admit to being very disappointed by one aspect. In several Hunter books (primarily the Hunter Survival Guide and the Hermit Creedbook) it has been indicated vampires know of the threat of Hunters, and have gone on a worldwide search for info. Absolutely no mention of that is made in the section covering what Vampires know about Hunters. I was really hoping to see some continuation of that bit of plot in this book, being a bloodsucker sourcebook for Hunter and all. Alas, it was not to be...
Now I’ll cover the rules portions of this chapter, and the confusion it filled me with. First off, there’s no mention of the fact that Vampires as a whole lack a general ability to cloud men’s minds. For those unfamiliar with Hunter and/or Vampire, in Hunter whenever a normal human encounters a supernatural being or incident, he always forgets about the encounter or misremembers it to explain the supernatural portions in mundane terms, though there are rare exceptions who recall things clearly. However, in Vampire bloodsuckers have no such “race“ ability to cloud perceptions, and humans remember their encounters with vamps as they would any other incident in their lives. Oh, some vampires can learn powers that allow them to manipulate human minds, but it’s not an ability that all vampires possess. Heck, the need for vampires to actively work to hide their existence from humans is the Masquerade portion of the title “Vampire: The Masquerade.” I thought White Wolf might bring this fact up for Hunter fans unfamiliar with Vampire, but it was not to be.
The main source of my confusion came from the rules for vampires in this book as they compare over in Vampire sourcebooks. I understand that the idea for this book was to have rules for vampire powers that could be used in Hunter without having to own any V: TM books, and respect that. I also understand converting the expenditure of Willpower points for using vampire powers into blood point expenditures in Hunter, so as not to confuse players who read the Hunter rulebook with its Willpower= Blood Points/Quintessence/Glamour/etc. schtick. However, some of the conversions in Nocturnal seem arbitrary. I found two vampire powers that require blood expenditures to use, while in V: TM no expenditure of blood is necessary to use them. There’s also another power, rather minor, which now requires a Blood Point to be spent for each success, rather than a skill roll as required in V: TM. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the author was trying to give Hunters a fighting chance, after the way recent Hunter books have poo-pooed the imbued’s chances of making a difference in the world.
The section covering blood slaves/ghouls also enhanced my confusion. For the most part I don’t blame the author(s) for this, as there have been discrepancies between White Wolf books regarding rules for ghouls since Vampire was first published. However, I could make no sense by the revelation in this book regarding animal ghouls. For some reason, in Hunter animal ghouls start with two points in Disciplines, while humans get the standard one point in Potence/Power. Why? I have no idea.
In the rules section’s favor, I was impressed by the use of Aggravated damage in discussing how to put down the undead. Ah, sweet Aggravated, which so many authors tried to keep out of Hunter books. Also, I must commend the author(s) coverage of vampires’ Aura Sight/Auspex ability and how it can be used to detect Hunters. In the FAQ of the Hunter Storyteller Guide the authors, displaying Chutzpah any politician would envy, first claimed no supernatural could detect Hunters with their powers (despite several books with rules to the contrary), then brought up Aura Sight and its ability to detect Hunters as it was detailed in a Vampire book. The authors basically said that Vampires could detect Hunters with Aura Sight, but didn’t know they were detecting them, so therefore they weren’t really detecting Hunters. The coverage of Aura Sight is much better in Nocturnal.
So, is Nocturnal deserving of a place in your collection? I don’t feel its one of the worst books to come out for Hunter, but I do think it didn’t live up to its full potential. If you have no access to V: TM books when running Hunter and don’t agree with my reasoning on the problems with the fiction section, you can pick it up now. Otherwise, you can hold off on this one, at least until you find it used or on sale.
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