Hunter the Vigil Discussion Thread

[Tadanori Oyama]

A thread for discussing Hunter: The Vigil, the New World of Darkness hunter game.

For Old World of Darkness players, Hunter the Vigil is the New World counterpart to Hunter the Reckoning. Vigil Hunters are not inherently supernatural and possess no inborn supernatural powers, rather gaining limited use of special powers through their organizations.

The game is played on three Tiers: alone, compact, and conspiricy, each progressivally larger in scale.

The game's focus is light and shadow. The suggested imagry is a candle in a dark room, providing just enough light to see shadows. This is to represent Hunters having had personal experiences without truly knowing what was responcible.

Hunter can primarily be run as an action game, an investigative game, a horror game, a pulp adventure game, a mystery game, or combinations of the above.



I am currently beginning one Hunter the Vigil game and preparing for a second, using two very different groups of gamers.

[Corrosive Rabbit]

What's the premise for your game (or do your players haunt the forums looking for secrets)? 

The game I'm considering running would be making use of the Block By Bloody Block supplement.  I'm envisioning a game where some of the PCs are police and the rest are criminals.  I'd start the game with an Assault On Precinct 13 type incident in which all the PCs are in the police station when it's attacked by "something".  From here, I'd move to the PCs becoming full-fledged Hunters and starting to take back their city from the supernatural forces arrayed against them.

Some of the tricky things (and the solutions I'm playing with) would be:

Why do the cops and criminals work together? -- Well, they all get dumped into it together anyway.  Also, I'm envisioning criminals with ties to a gang or organized crime, who also have a stake in protecting their turf.  I'd need to emphasize to the characters playing criminals that certain types of characters are right out (no serial killers, sex offenders, etc.).  Also, both character types would have something to bring to the table.  The cop characters have the advantage of being able to play on their authority, to an extent, and to the resources given to them by the police department.  Conversely, the criminal characters will have other, different resources, and won't be saddled by legal niceties that may restrict the cops.

How do the cops at one precinct manage to operate city-wide? -- I'm thinking that the cop PCs are all members of the "Special Investigation Unit", which is in reality a dumping ground for cops who have screwed up, offended the wrong higher-up, or are just a little off of normal.  This lets me put their HQ in a run-down precinct, while still giving them license to operate city-wide.  Also, this helps explain why they might be a bit more amenable to working with unsavoury criminal types towards "the greater good."

Anyway, those are just some initial musings ...

CR

[Tadanori Oyama]

My game is more sandbox focused. The players are playing Tier Three Hunters with 50xp and 4 free Endowment Dots so they are quite powerful.

Three players, each from a different Conspiricy: the Lucifrage, Malleus Malefactum, and the Cheiron Group. That cases a wide net as far as their abilities and goals in the World of Darkness.

The Witch Hammer Hunter is a Catholic Priest who's primary concern is the protect of his people from supernatural horrors. He loaths cults and other "false religions", such as the spirit worship of witchs and werewolves.

The 7th Generation Hunter is the player who didn't want to hunt monsters. She's turning her concept towards a social Hunter who convinces things to move along or to change their ways, like she has.

And finally the Cheiron Hunter is playing a battle engine who wants to use the supernatural against itself.

I'll be using Damnation City, the Vampire expansion book, as one of my primary tools, as well as Chicago, the melting pot city for nWoD. The players will have multipule story hooks baited and ready at the start of play, some based on the city, some based on their characters, and some base on their respective conspiricies.

[clockworkjoe]

What's the premise for your game (or do your players haunt the forums looking for secrets)? 

The game I'm considering running would be making use of the Block By Bloody Block supplement.  I'm envisioning a game where some of the PCs are police and the rest are criminals.  I'd start the game with an Assault On Precinct 13 type incident in which all the PCs are in the police station when it's attacked by "something".  From here, I'd move to the PCs becoming full-fledged Hunters and starting to take back their city from the supernatural forces arrayed against them.

Some of the tricky things (and the solutions I'm playing with) would be:

Why do the cops and criminals work together? -- Well, they all get dumped into it together anyway.  Also, I'm envisioning criminals with ties to a gang or organized crime, who also have a stake in protecting their turf.  I'd need to emphasize to the characters playing criminals that certain types of characters are right out (no serial killers, sex offenders, etc.).  Also, both character types would have something to bring to the table.  The cop characters have the advantage of being able to play on their authority, to an extent, and to the resources given to them by the police department.  Conversely, the criminal characters will have other, different resources, and won't be saddled by legal niceties that may restrict the cops.

How do the cops at one precinct manage to operate city-wide? -- I'm thinking that the cop PCs are all members of the "Special Investigation Unit", which is in reality a dumping ground for cops who have screwed up, offended the wrong higher-up, or are just a little off of normal.  This lets me put their HQ in a run-down precinct, while still giving them license to operate city-wide.  Also, this helps explain why they might be a bit more amenable to working with unsavoury criminal types towards "the greater good."

Anyway, those are just some initial musings ...

CR

You absolutely MUST watch season 1 of the Wire if you want to run this game. Because it has most of what you describe in there minus the supernatural stuff.

Plus it has scenes like this

<a href="" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win"></a>

and

<a href="" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win"></a>

[Tadanori Oyama]

I'd run a Wire based game (especially using Hunter rules) if I thought my players could play criminals. As it is, only one of them could do it with any real ability.

[wrotenbe]

I just finished up my own HtV game that I'd been running since last October. Overall, I love the system, and I'm already working on my next game of it.

[Corrosive Rabbit]

My game is more sandbox focused.

I'm hoping to move to a more sandbox type game after the first interlude used to compel the PCs to work together.  What I'm hoping for is a situation where the PC respond to attacks on their turf, but also seek to expand the area they control.  As they go, I'll probably have them run into representatives of other conspiracies and compacts, some of which may aid them, and some of which will almost certainly manipulate them.  I'm picturing a city that is already at war, with various supernatural forces striking out at each other as well as the PCs.  The idea of the PCs chasing down a car full of vampire gangbangers that is simultaneously trying to do a driveby on fleeing werewolves sounds like fun to me. 

CR

[Tadanori Oyama]

I'm aiming for a horror theme with my game. Sounds like your going for action (and awesome sounding action at that). My players are more powerful than starting characters but it's like giving the PCs shotguns and dynamite in Call of Cthulhu: false comfort.

[wrotenbe]

I'll just warn you, the Benedictions Endowment is rife with twinked out powers. If you don't watch it, your Malleus could make himself the group's center of gravity solely because of the abilities he has.

[Tadanori Oyama]

My anger with my players builds. Out of three players, only one had any real idea what they wanted to do with their character. Last night we had the first "session", which considered of players filling out their character sheets and reading the books. I'm trying to walk them through creation but they insist on working the system backwards, moving from Endowments back into Attributes and Abilities.

I have no problem with them ensuring they can field three or four dice for their given abilities, the problem is that creating a character like that results in a massive time lose (about four hours in this case since they didn't actually finish their characters last night).

Next week I'm starting the game and anyone who's not finished will just have to catch up.

[Corrosive Rabbit]

Ouch.  That is a bad sign, given that character creation in NWoD is a pretty quick process.  I guess they succumbed to the lure of flipping to the shiny powers section, which is normally understandable, but kind of annoying when you're under a time-limit.

CR

[Tadanori Oyama]

Indeed. And I know the process is stream lined a quick because the one player who was paying attention, read the base material, and had a concept ready was able to throw down his stats in about an hour while discussing the themes of the chronicle with me to make sure he wasn't over reaching on his Ability selections.

Not a surprise, it's just how the other players are.

Anyway, next week I'm sure I'll have plenty of funny stories about the game.

[Zeernebooch]

Right now i am trying to work out a HtV game and my biggest problem, other than being fail at putting coherent thoughts on paper, is that my group either
does not show, jerks around the entire time, tries to have gay sex with everything whatever its sexual preference may be, or some other ridiculous thing.
But that is another problem entirely.

Now my main idea for the games begining is that the PCs all know each through their shared experience with the supernatural.
I have decided that i will be throwing them right into the middle of some crazy shit involving some sort of witchcult bent gaining power through the destruction of places of supernatural significance around the city. I plan for the inital goal of the group to be finding where the cults base of operations is, what they are trying to do, and find a way
of stopping them without drawing too much attention from the police and anyone else who may have an interest in the cults activities.
My current plan for what happens after (if they survive and are not arrested) is for the cell to catch the eye of the local agents of the different Compacts in the area,likely being approached by their agents in order to either A) try and recruit them or B) warn them not to get in their way.

My biggest problem is that I suck at details and am not sure how to flesh things out. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[arthwollipot]

Nah - sounds to m like your main problem is dickhead players.

[Tadanori Oyama]

I agree, your players sound like real champions.

I'd suggest you need to find a way to convince the players that the cult is doing something bad enough to warrent getting involved. I mean, if the cult is destroying supernatural power sources than the cell might be inclined to let them do the heavy lifting.