Go forth, and inherit the Earth

[adderslj]

There's a review of Time of Judgement up on Wolf Spoor. I wasn't involved in the book, but it does mark the end of two lines I was heavily involved with: Hunter: the Reckoning and Demon: the Fallen, so it's worthy of note here.

However, I'm beginning to understand better how eyebeams feels about some net commentary. Shannon W. Hennessy chooses to trot out the same old clichés about Hunter we've had to put up with for the last five years: "it wasn't Hunters Hunted Revised" and "hunters aren't people, they're supernaturals". Meh. Frankly, I'm disappointed that somebody who normally shows some thought and consideration in his work falls prey to these knee-jerk reactions.

Ah well, it's over now, and I know that a lot of people got a lot of fun out of Hunter. I've certainly enjoyed working with the likes of oldmotherchaos, lighthorse76, docredfern, ashamel, Greg Stolze, Chuck Wendig andinnocent_man on the line, I think there are some very, very strong books that gave a whole new aspect to the WoD out there and I think the game stayed 100% true to the vision of the core book, whatever Mr Hennessy chooses to opine. To those who enjoyed the line and my writing on it, thank you. To those who never looked at it with open eyes because you were too blinded by your perception of what it should have been: meh. Your loss.

Comments

[zamiel.livejournal.com]

Well, to be completely fair, Hunters are supernaturals, and as a result of being Imbued, they have difficulty (to impossibility for some Castes) trying to lead normal human lives. So, really, they're about as much "people" as, say, 14th Generation Vampires or Dhampirs, and slightly less so than Sorcerers.

[adders.livejournal.com]

*rolls eyes*

Meh.

[oakthorne.livejournal.com]

Sure, they are imbued with supernatural abilities.

But the concerns and focus of Hunter is entirely human. It isn't about going out and thwacking the gribblies - it is about trying to keep your life together against a backdrop of gribbly-thwacking.

It is about being "human" in the same way that many of the best X-Men plotlines are: Which is to say, you are fighting for something that is so desperately valuable that you have no choice, because you have the abilities needed to fight it, when all you would like to be able to do is just return to a normal life and let someone else do it.

I find the concept that just because someone has a Kewl Powerz section on their character sheet, they are automatically not human to be myopic.

Regards,
Joseph

[trekhead.livejournal.com]

I dunno if you ever heard, but back in the original Hunter design meeting, we originally did wanna just do it as normal Joes without any powers -- a revision of The Hunters, Hunted. This fell by the wayside after Marketing decided that "If it doesn't have powers, it will never sell, so you must change it." Imbued Hunters have supernatural powers, so they're pretty clearly not "normal" people . . .
Of course, this in no way obviates the coolness of elements that later came out of the Hunter setting. I was always a big proponent of the Hunter.net anyway.

[adders.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was aware of that.

My point is, as ever, on that definintion of "normal" thing. Frankly, paramilitary branches of the Catholic church, and highly-trained secret service agents don't strike me as "normal", either.

The beauty of the imbuing mechanism is that it allows any character to be drawn into the struggle without giving them the inherent support structures that come with the main supernatural splats. You're fighting against monsters only you can see. And you still have to pay the rent and get the kids to school on time.

That's why they're normal - despite what they can do, they're trapped in the mundane lives of most people, without the backing of powerful (and sometimes supernatural) agencies (Like the Camarilla, the Garou Nation, the Traditions or even the US Government or Catholic Church).

But I've made this argument again and again and again, and I'm bored of it.

Meh.

[trekhead.livejournal.com]

Different definitions of what constitutes "normalcy." The usual fan yardstick is simply "Does it have powerz?" In terms of "leading a mundane life," the Imbued certainly have a higher proportion than most other critters.

[adders.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

And unfortunatly the debate goes about as far as "they've got powers?" "Yeah, but..." "Not interested".

Which is fair enough.

But then when they go on to slate the game because it's not what they wanted, rather than looking at it as what it is, then it can be...irritating.

"Oh, I thought Star Trek was gonna be about famous people on wilderness trips. This science fiction thing sucks because it's not that..."

[artbroken.livejournal.com]

Yep. The debate, as always, is whether 'human' is phenomenonologial or existential; whether it's something you are or something you do.

The imbued remain yoked to all the downsides (and occasional upsides) of the human condition, whether or not they can make baseball bats explode. That makes them 'normal people' and 'human', as far as I'm concerned.

[nerd-king.livejournal.com]

To my mind, Mages and Imbued are human but changelings (while they still go to school and pay bills) are less so because of what they are fundementally - i.e. a merging of a human and fae soul.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

It's one of my roleplaying regrets that I didn't have the time to commit properly to your Hunter game; were things different (like if I'd been living in London at the time) I'd have loved to have played in it properly.

And I don't get the "They're not Human" comment - by the same account, neither are Magi in Ars Magica. Characters still live, breathe, love, hate, worry about paying the bills and getting on in the world.

The human condition still affects them. That's human enough for me.

[adders.livejournal.com]

You may get your chance yet. Mr Shockley has been agitating to get a few weekend games of that Hunter chronicle going. Once I've got my current Werewolf: the Forsaken assignment out the way, I intend to try and arrange it.

[ephraim.livejournal.com]

Good.
:0)

*prod* *prod* *agitate*

[artbroken.livejournal.com]

The human condition still affects them. That's human enough for me.

Exafuckingtacly.

[etherlad.livejournal.com]

The great thing about WolfSpoor is that if you don't like it, you can rate the review yourself. If there are two different reviews of the same book, people can decide for themselves which one's most useful, using the other user ratings as a guideline.

[adders.livejournal.com]

You plugging on my journal, sir? :-)

[etherlad.livejournal.com]

Well, yes and no. (:

I've seen a lot of complaining in general directed at certain WW sites about how they think a certain review isn't worth the digital paper it's written on.

When I made WS, I wanted it to be a community first and foremost. Someone puts up a review you don't like, you can instantly say so, and your opinion will influence others who read the same review (since user ratings are visible to anyone reading a review). If enough people give something a bad rating, others will steer clear of it.

[adders.livejournal.com]

*nods*

To be honest, I wasn't attacking the review, because at least Shannon admitted his bias. I was attacking the attitude that underlined that bias.

The review, as a whole, is good. The guy has a blind spot, he knows he has a blind spot and I don't like his reasons for having it, but it doesn't undermine the review.

[artbroken.livejournal.com]

I'm not so sure about that. He admits that he has a blind spot about Demon - ie he knows very little about the game - and so covers that chapter only briefly. He has just as little experience of Hunterm but climbs on the soapbox and pillories the game for not being what he wants it to be before reviewing it. That's hardly unbiased.

And I quote:

Kill it. Shoot it. Beat it with a stick. Burn it. Don’t listen to it. Take its shit. Let’s go and make a new world for everyone.

Fuck that. That's not what I wrote for Time of Judgment, and that's not what Hunter has ever been about. If that's what you come away with, then there's a giant fucking set of blinkers getting in the way of your reading.

(Pardon the belligerence. I'm drunk and ornery.)

[nerd-king.livejournal.com]

If lots of people got that impression, perhaps the initial advertising or hype was what created it.

I know when I saw the initial blurbs I thought - so is this Buffy meets THEY LIVE with shotguns and an angelic twist?

[adders.livejournal.com]

Yeah, well, if someone's reviewing something, they should be working on proper reading and knowledge, not a four year old advertising campaign.

Don't play apologia for idiots.

[nerd-king.livejournal.com]

What can I say? I love playing Devil's advocate.

[artbroken.livejournal.com]

You can boil anything down to a high concept if you try hard enough.

And the game's been out for like four years. Anyone making decisions about it now based on old advertising is being a goddamn twit.

Just as an aside...

[theaceofspades.livejournal.com]

I surfed in here from another journal, and read this... and honestly, I have to say that H:tR is one of the few core WoD books out of WW in five+ years that I felt was worth every penny I paid.

I adore H:tR for its humanity - I'm running an Imbued TT game right now, and thematically, the PCs are all still trying to deal with real life, and figure things out. Granted, I bent some rules here and there to make it deviate from the book enough that the players couldn't 'play the ruleset' on an OOC level, but I think it all fits well.

I keep them surrounded by Normal Human Beings - friends, loved ones - and keep hitting on the issue of faith. Faith plays a big part in my campaign, as one of the recurring themes (along with fear, balance, sanity, and doubt). The players are good enough that their characters filter everything through the veneer of normalcy first. Example: The fellow with a high Patron background gets horrifying dreams and visions, and the others think he's just succumbed to PTSD.

People who get H:tR on that level are a blessing. I loved a lot of the supplemental material, and felt it was the only WoD game where 'world-immersion through proper presentation of the material' worked.



Enough gushing from me. :)