RPGaDAY 2017 #9

From the #RPGaDAY2017 challenge (info here):

[as I'm starting this thing a little late, I shall be doubling up on my daily posts until I catch up. Early posts will be post-dated to the date they were originally supposed to appear]

What is a good RPG to play for about 10 sessions?

Ten sessions? That's a tough one. And it depends on a lot of factors: how long are these sessions we're talking about? Short, two hour sessions? Or those eight hour marathons sessions we used to play on the weekends in our youth?

Do the ten sessions include prep between sessions? Are we allowed pre- and post-game maintenance phases a la Ars Magica or Pendragon? Are players familiar with the system that's being played? Is this one of those games where you have to kill an entire session just to create characters for the game?

There are a lot of games that can be adapted to this kind of "mini-series" format, but they won't always provide satisfying gameplay. Some RPGs, like Dungeons & Dragons, only show their true strengths over long-term play. Some RPGs, like Ron Edward's Sorcerer, can't be drawn out past three or four sessions without feeling contrived and over-long. Even Call of Cthulhu begs for a shorter time period...if half the group isn't insane after five or six sessions, your GM isn't doing it right.

However, tough as it is, JB does have an answer that satisfies...at least if it was ME that had to run a ten (and only ten) game session. And that answer is The Hunters Hunted from White Wolf.

No, I don't mean that big orange monstrosity they put out in 1999; that was Hunter: the Reckoning, and it helped make a game line (World of Darkness) that was already a little too super heroic even more so (to my chagrin as a fan). In fact, even though I stopped insanely collecting every WW book and supplement about the time of the original Wraith ("the Oblivion") it was the publication of Hunter: the Reckoning which caused me to turn my back on the whole WoD game line (I had still been picking up the occasional Black Dog imprint for Vampire). Ugly.

Nope, I'm talking about the original VtM supplement written by Bill Bridges and published in 1992. At under 90 pages it provided pretty much everything you needed to create and run a Hunter campaign, in the classic vampire horror story style (think Fright Night, Salem's Lot, Bram Stoker, etc.). It's quite good, for what it is, and it's absolutely perfect for a short-term series, whether you want to play over-the-top (Buffy, Blade) or something darker and more grim. Ten sessions is plenty of time for a group of would-be hunters to chase down the handful of vamps (or coterie of mages or clan of werewolves...whatever) inhabiting a medium-sized city.

THIS one! Yes, it's scary...scary fun!

And ten sessions is great for the type of development that occurs in the standard Vampire game (characters start out relatively proficient, and won't grow to super heroic proportions in ten sessions...especially mortals who lack vampiric disciplines). Unlike other systems (Palladium, D20 Modern) there's no pressure to "level up," as there are no levels. Yeah, the short time frame of the saga won't be a hindrance to character advancement in HH.

I've only had the opportunity to run a Hunters Hunted saga once...and (if I remember correctly) it was the last time I ran any World of Darkness game (I ran WW games through the end of high school and all through college...a good five or six years, at least). My main player wanted to try a WoD game, but "didn't want to play a monster;" a Hunters game seemed like the obvious choice. While we had a great time, he decided he wanted to switch to a standard vampire after the first couple of sessions...the overall vibe of playing a mortal had been a little too freaky/scary for him. Too bad, really (especially as we never got back to VtM, switching instead to 3rd Edition D&D), because I had really been grooving on the whole thing. Unleashed my inner Crypt Keeper or something.
; )

I've often thought of dusting off Ye Old Hunters Hunted and rewriting it with a B/X chassis (perhaps using elements of Beyond the Supernatural), but I just haven't had the heart to do so. Bridges wrote a fine little supplement for Vampire. It's one White Wolf game I wouldn't mind running again.

Hunting Witches

This is Tim Brannan's fault.

I love the concept of the witch hunter, of witch hunting, in general. Not in the "red scare" sense of the phrase, nor even the historical Inquisition-mananged mass murder of people-who-don't-think-and-worship-like-us. No, I'm talking about fantasy witch-hunting: the idea that there are dark and sinister supernatural forces out there and some heroic folks have been chosen for the gig of hunting said forces.

Nostalgia of the Nineties

As a premise for an RPG, this isn't a terribly original idea...more than a couple of Pelgrane Press's GUMSHOE games fall into this category, as does Beyond the Supernatural, InSpectres, and (to a lesser degree) Call of Cthulhu. The Mutant Chronicles certainly had a large dose of SciFi flavored witch hunting to it. Heck, there was even a game called Witch Hunters that was published a few years back, though I'd break out the old White Wolf Hunters Hunted supplement (for 1E VtM) long before I'd ever put down money for such a book/system.

[The Hunters Hunted is a truly under appreciated gem of a supplement/mini-game that I should blog about some time.  I realize it led to its own game line eventually ("Hunters Reckoning," I think?) but I got a lot of mileage off that original, slim volume. Very cool and one of the best Vampire products]

And, for more medieval-style games, there are plenty of witch hunters to be found in the Warhammer universe...I'm not sure if the latest version of WHFRP has them, but the first couple editions (through Hogshead) had witch hunters as an advanced career path, and you could play an entire warband of witch hunters in the Mordheim game.

But for old school D&D...the pre-2E editions...the idea of the witch hunter is a bit of a tough sell. After all, old school D&D isn't about hunting anything. Anything besides treasure, that is.

After reading Tim's post this morning, I (momentarily) considered an idea for a new B/X supplement...a campaign setting featuring a world where most of the "fantasy" elements were all (to some degree) aspects or side effects of supernatural evil. Evil of an inhuman, alien nature, filtered in  from other dimensions, through rifts made wide by human sorcerers who were willing to bargain away their souls...hell, their very world...for a taste of power. In such a setting, player characters would have a chance to be real heroes, not just "scurrilous rogues," as they fight against the dark forces threatening their planet. "Orcs" would simply be bestial, mutated humans. "Goblins" would be hellish imps, the lowest demons serving dark masters. All monsters in the B/X game could be re-skinned as devils and demons and twisted pawns of alien intelligences.

But it's a world closer to WHFRP's Enemy Within campaign than Palladium's Wormwood. This campaign setting hasn't yet been overrun, nor even is it on the verge of Armageddon...but without the aid of witch-hunting PCs, it could move to that DEFCON stage. This is a world that calls for hunters to root out the bad juju.

In such a setting, witch-hunters would take the place of the cleric class, as what type of divinely intervening deity would allow the world of Its worshippers to be so mistreated? Undead would certainly play a lesser role in such a campaign, and alternative forms of healing would be needed (perhaps fighters would be able to apply "field dressings" to wounded companions after combat, healing a certain number of HPs based on level). Such a game could be fun, though in a bleak way featuring corruption and cultists and whatnot; maybe something for use with Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Maybe.

Then I took a long nap.

And when I woke up and got my brain to running again, I realized "hey, wait a sec...this has nut-all to do with finding treasure." And that's when the wheels came off the concept. Because the LAZY way of handling such a thing would be to say, hey, it's just B/X with some different house rules...you're still looking to loot the chaotic monsters and evil cultists lairs (in order to earn XP, in order to level up). Because witch hunters need phat loot, too.

Um, no. We are not going to be playing characters interested in making a buck while Rome burns down around their ears.

And since on second (post-nap) pass, I see the concept would need a lot of substantial retooling of the B/X system in order to work to my standards, this is a project that'll have to be shelved for the time being. I'm already in the midst of a retooling/writing project, and I want to get that one knocked out. Too bad, though...I've already got a couple ideas for titles to such a project. And I've got some notes stashed away (somewhere) about retooling Realms of Chaos concepts for B/X that could probably be put to good use on such a project. Yeah, it would be an interesting setting to play/run in...

Shoot, I could probably adapt part of my (reworked) Cry Dark Future advancement system to the thing...

No, no, no...one thing at a time! Maybe if someone wants to collaborate with me on such a project so I don't have to do all the writing myself (ugh, I see why Kevin Siembieda is such a fan o the "cut-and-paste"), I could find some time for it.

Maybe.