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V20 The Hunters Hunted II $14.99
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V20 The Hunters Hunted II
Publisher: Onyx Path Publishing
by Megan R. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 06/20/2016 10:38:57

Opening with some evocative fiction that sets the scene, this book is about those mortals who have realised that vampires actually exist and have decided to do something about them: the Hunters. The Introduction expands on this, explaining that whilst vampires are predators, there are also those who prey on them... and that 'vampire hunters' are one of the few things that actually scares a vampire. They hunt for various reasons and use a variety of methods, but they all have the same purpose: to rid the world of these evil creatures.

Hunters are generally driven by hate. They often don't know that much about vampires, and what they do know is a mix of fact and fantasy. After all, it's not a topic of respectable study, it's even hard to find anyone who will agree that yes, the monsters are real. The main themes here are personal horror and sacrifice, and the mood is one of desperate determination. Vampire hunters often do not last long, even if they escape the nearest lunatic asylum and public ridicule for their beliefs. There are two ways you can use this book: either you run a game based around a party of vampire hunters or you use the material herein to create potent adversaries for your coterie.

Chapter 1: Alone in the Night looks at how people come to be hunters in the first place. Delivered as a monologue that at times seems deranged, it's a good rundown of why people become vampire hunters, what motivates them and what they actually do. Many start curious, just wanting to know more, but nearly all end up wanting to destroy the vampire menace. There's a lot of ideas for how to combat vampires and their special abilities too, as well as the warning that using most of those ideas will likely attrack police attention, and the average cop will not be impressed when you start going on about vampires... There is also material about working as a group of hunters rather than a solo vigilante.

Then Chapter 2: Character Creation and Traits shows you how to generate hunter characters (whether you want to play them or use them as well-detailed adversaries). It starts will getting the group together (players, I mean) and deciding what sort of game you want. This will help the Storyteller build the right sort of chronicle and the players create appropriate hunter characters. Of course, the process works as well for a Storyteller who wants to use hunters as major antagonists in a conventional Vampire game, but then it will be a more solitary thing.

Next, Chapter 3: Tools and Tactics expands on the ideas already expressed and provides a wealth of new ones. It is also replete with story hooks and suggestions that spawn plots of their own accord as you read. There's also some notes on how to plan and run a hunter operation (as hunters, that is) - along with rules suggestions on how to judge its efficacy in a way that makes it exciting to all participants. Then Chapter 4: Numina gives hunters that extra edge, assorted mystical powers some of them can tap into to help them in their fight. There's hedge magic, divine powers, healing, psychic powers and more.

Chapter 5: Storytelling goes behind the scenes with masses of good advice for Storytellers, particularly those who want to run a chronicle based on vampire hunters. It looks at what is different about a Vampire game run from that angle, and what is still the same as in a regular game. It explores the themes and moods you might want to use, and how to construct a chronicle from a bunch of misfits getting together to... well, whatever climactic battle ends your chronicle. You may be after action/adventure, mystery, horror, survival, investigation... or probably a bit of a mix. There are plenty of ideas here to help you. It's well worth a read, and ideas spawn as you do so, never mind the actual hooks and story seeds liberally scattered throughout.

Next, Chapter 6: Organisations and Resources provides some organisations that hunt vampires. Your hunters may join them, work with them or even come into conflict with them. Many have specialised tools, techniques and contacts which members can use to effect. Everyone from the Catholic Church to the US Government and organised crime seem to be getting in on the act, so there's plenty of scope to twist your game in whatever direction you fancy. Loads of examples and ideas here...

Finally, an Appendix presents Sample Characters. Perhaps you cannot wait to run your game, or you want a few hunters to throw at your vampires... or maybe you just want some examples of what can be done.

This puts a whole delightful spin on a Vampire game, and fills your head with ideas, whether you want to hunt a few vampires or threaten the ones you've got with something other that vampire intriques and power struggles. Well worth a read.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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V20 The Hunters Hunted II
Publisher: Onyx Path Publishing
by Nenad R. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 01/24/2014 01:06:33

I have to admit that I was not that impressed with the original Hunters Hunted. I found that it fell a bit flat for me.

The new edition fixes that, and makes the hunters feel a lot more integrated into the World of Darkness, in addition to updating the concepts behind them to the 21st century. It explains the various functions and organisations, as well as how the hunters would conduct themselves.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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V20 The Hunters Hunted II
Publisher: Onyx Path Publishing
by Adrian S. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 09/23/2013 17:32:09

The original ‘Hunters Hunted’ was one of my favourite oWoD books. Never a fan of ‘Hunter: the Reckoning’, my preference always ran to a gritty game where survival was never assured. The game focused on humans trying to take back their world (albeit there were Numina rules and some fairly overpowered Merits, though). Picking up ‘Hunters Hunted II’ seems like a natural continuation. The writing flows seamlessly, and the mood has been perfectly captured. It’s very easy to see the bleak, lonely existence of the Hunter as portrayed by the many voices throughout the book – and there is a wealth of practical advice for the Storyteller.

The heart of the game lies in playing the Hunt very cleverly, and the developers reward smart players with a new mechanic called ‘Plan Dice’. These are dice (additional to the regular pool) which can be accessed during a Hunt, but are built through the quality of the players Plan. Obviously no plan survives contact with the enemy (the chapter actually begins with this quote), so the characters need every edge they can get. Overall, the mechanic is a nice bit of flavour with in-game benefits that might be the thin red line between victory and defeat in some situations, but I think it is a very reasonable inclusion to the game.

The Storyteller section is par excellence. There are so many good ideas in here, whether you want HH2 as a one-shot, or as a long-running chronicle. The practical considerations of the Hunt are discussed, usually by ‘hunters in the field’ speaking from experience. These include, ‘why attacking the police is stupid’, ‘why you don’t want to be labelled a terrorist’, and lots of material about equipment and misinformation in the game. Social media and the recent craze for vampire fiction were welcome additions, and there is some very intelligent discourse about how a viral video of hunters in action is a vampire’s best weapon. Anecdotes are liberally sprinkled throughout these sections, and could be easily woven into a game as plot hooks, or NPC dialogue.

I can’t speak highly enough of the work the authors have done on this book. At every point, I felt as though I was simply reading an extension of the classic oWoD book – just with some updates for the ‘modern world’. The feel, mood, and theme have been perfectly bottled in this title, and like a fine wine, the ‘Hunters Hunted’ duology has proved that is simply gets better with age.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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V20 The Hunters Hunted II
Publisher: Onyx Path Publishing
by Anthony J. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 09/04/2013 14:34:03

This book is great! It really gets into the mentality of being a mortal fighting against powerful supernatural forces. Rather than focusing on katana wielding bad boys/girls, Hunter Hunted II is about regular people who witness something terrible that they can't explain. They're not sure if they are crazy or not, but they have to find the truth. And in the World of Darkness that truth has fangs and sucks blood!
Hunters Hunted II offers character creation rules for Mortals and some new powers that are only available to mortals. Along with the new systems for planning attacks and even rules for damage from getting hit by speeding vehicles, this book has a little bit of everything! I've had the PDF for several months now thanks to backing the Kickstarter, and I've read it over several times. This book has everything you need to run a Chronicle focused on Mortal hunters or just to add a dangerous antagonist for your campaign.
As with most White Wolf/The Onyx Path books some of the systems are as well defined or developed as they could be, but they are still useful. The New Planning Dice system adds a fun element that lets players earn extra dice for a mission by planning well. The art and fiction of Hunters Hunted II is excellent and really fits the atmosphere of the Old World of Darkness. This book isn't a must have, but I really so no reason not to purchase.
I have a full review available on my blog. http://readthedamnbook.blogspot.com/2013/07/late-review-hunters-hunted-ii.html



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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V20 The Hunters Hunted II
Publisher: Onyx Path Publishing
by Paul B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/18/2013 18:53:40

Before I start, know that I love, love, LOVE this book! It is a lovely revisiting of The Hunters Hunted, a book that was full of potential in its own right. This version for the Vampire Twentieth Anniversary edition line is something worth getting. Like other titles in the line, this new book builds on the old book while bringing in new ideas and updates for the twenty-first century, offers new art alongside some classics from the original, and we get some revised mechanics. However, it's not QUITE the book that Onyx Path had planned to release...

A Deluxe Edition of this book was offered as a Kickstarter for the V20 lineup for Vampire: the Masquerade. Before that, the full, unformatted text was made available well before the Kickstarter began as part of the Onyx Path Open Development process. This meant that all of the book's text was written, edited and THEN crowd-source edited before the Kickstarter even began.

And then the Kickstarter began.

Among the Stretch Goals that Richard Thomas offered over on Kickstarter was a chance to add text to the book itself, and then he offered some more chances. We met ALL of those additional text goals, which is why The Hunters Hunted II now has a sixth chapter AND 50% more page count than was originally planned.

So, what did those additions bring? We get a more in-depth view of the Society of Leopold (a/k/a the Inquisition), the U.S. Government (a/k/a "Project Twilight"), the Arcanum, criminal and organized crime groups, minor hunter factions (including the Young Bloods from the original The Hunters Hunted) AND an updated list of hunters' gear! Of course, all of the above really builds on what's already in the V20 book, but the additions are truly wonderful. Oh, and the Kickstarter community had a chance to read, edit and critique the book's PDF before you got a chance to buy it.

...Another reviewer mentioned that there are Numina, Merits and other traits littered through Chapter Six, and the above is offered as an explanation for that (as well as a selling point). The various traits in that last chapter are most appropriate for hunters of those particular factions rather than off-the-street hunters which are the concern of the rest of the book, but that doesn't mean those traits are exclusive.

The Hunters Hunted II could have been a good book, but thanks to Richard's offers and the Kickstarter community's support, you have a chance to get a GREAT book.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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V20 The Hunters Hunted II
Publisher: Onyx Path Publishing
by Alexander L. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 07/17/2013 13:39:46

Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2013/05/14/tabletop-review-the-hunters-hunted-ii-vampire-the-masquerade-20th-anniversay-edition/

The Hunters Hunted II is the fifth Kickstarter based project for Onyx Path Publishing, who has taken the reigns from White Wolf as the purveyor of both versions of the World of Darkness. Out of those six Kickstarter campaigns, three have been for Vampire: The Masquerade products and, oddly enough, even though V:TM was one of my big three games as a kid (along with Shadowrun and Call of Cthulhu), I’ve found those releases to be much weaker than the non-V:TM pieces like Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition and Mummy: The Curse for the current World of Darkness. Is it changing tastes or simply that Onyx Path has learned with each passing Kickstarter how to put out a better product? I have to say the latter, because The Hunters Hunted II is the newest and the best V20 release to date. Of course, considering how terrible The V20 Companion was and how mediocre Children of the Revolution was, it’s not a hard contest for HH2 to win. Still, The Hunters Hunted II, while rife with typos, missing mechanics and other errors, is a noticeable improvement on the two previous V20 Kickstarter products and as most, if not all, of the technical and grammatical errors will no doubt be fixed before a public release (trust me, OPP has already been sent lists of errors by Kickstarter backers), I won’t harp on any of them.

What I will say though is that as good as HH2 is, most of it is written… oddly. You see, The Hunters Hunted II reads like it was written for someone new to Vampire: The Masquerade rather than its actual audience, which is comprised of a small niche group of tabletop and LARP gamers that have kept the setting alive long after it was abandoned by White Wolf. So much of the text in the book reads like a “how to roleplay” section from a Player’s Manual or “How to run a game,” from a Storyteller/DM/Keeper/whatever’s Guide. I would guess that only a fraction of the 185 pages that make up this book are actually new material rather than things V:TM gamers already know instinctually after being told it many times before in other White Wolf products. What is new, such as redefined rules for Hedge Magic, Numina, Merits, Flaws, Backgrounds and the like aren’t organized in a manner I find very useable. The book organizes things by specific hunter groups or affiliations and then presents their specific new character creation bits right after the description. I would have preferred to have all the descriptions in one area and then all the character creation mechanics in their own area. It’s going to be quite hard to use this book when you’re flipping around trying to remember where that one Background trait was, or where the definitions of what a three point relic is compared to a three point Requisition and so on. For example, some generic backgrounds and general character creation bits can be found in Chapter 2 (Character Creation), but they can also be found in Chapter 4 (Numina), and scattered haphazardly through Chapter 6 (Organizations). My hope is that they’ll lay this out better in the final product, although because that would take a massive bit of editing, it probably won’t happen. Because of this, any players or Storytellers using The Hunters Hunted II will want to make use of a lot of reusable Post-it-Notes to help you recall where everything is.

Aside from layout and editing issues, I really liked The Hunters Hunted II. It is so well written in terms of introducing new players to the World of Darkness and what it means to be a human in it, that I’d probably use this as an introduction to the setting rather than throwing players right into V:TM, W:TA or what have you. The problem with most V:TM or WoD fans is that we know the setting inside and out, and so playing a hunter becomes a bit hard since you have all this Player Knowledge that can, and will, intrude on character knowledge, even if you don’t mean it to. Get a bunch of V:TM vets playing hunters and it can also make the story not as thrilling as it would be to newcomers. “Oh, the vampire doesn’t cast a reflection. Get ready for Obtenebration!” or instead of “Holy crap, that vampire turned into a snake. My entire preconceived notions of what a vampire is has been shattered!” becomes “Oh. Follower of Set. Sweet. They take extra damage from sunlight.” So yes, HH2 is a great book for new players and Storytellers to enter the World of Darkness with. The problem is that there aren’t that many new people taking up the old version of the World of Darkness. Fans of these games have slowly shrunk as the line stopped being supported, and now it’s mainly people in their thirties, forties, or older that know the game so inside and out that a “how to play a hunter/run a hunter based game” book is a bit redundant or unnecessary for them. If anything, HH2 serves as a wake up call for fans of the system, and perhaps OPP itself, that nostalgia based Kickstarters can only take the license so far and that new blood (no pun intended) is what we truly need to keep the old World of Darkness alive.

The Hunters Hunted II consists of nine sections and eight pages of Kickstarter backer names. The first section is “Here Goes Everything,” a short piece of epistolary fiction as it is a letter from a hunter informing someone of what may be their last act. From there, we get a three page introduction that talks about the thematic differences that come with playing one who hunts the supernatural in the World of Darkness. It’s short, sweet and to the point.

Chapter 1 is entitled “Alone in the Night” and is a basic primer for new hunters (both characters and players). It’s told from the perspective of a grizzled old hunter who is teaching the intricacies of his art and the collected knowledge he has learned to a newcomer; whether he wants to hear it or not. You can see the “twist” ending coming almost from the beginning of the tale, but it’s a nice piece of meta-fiction that covers just about everything you need to know about the World of Darkness and hunting – from the perspective of a monster hunter anyway.

Chapter 2 is “Character Creation and Traits” and it’s exactly what you would expect from the title. This chapter shows the mechanics of character creation as well as the important stuff mechanics can’t help you with, such as creating a back story, personality and other aspects of fleshing out your creation. Most of the pages are devoted to the latter, which is a bit of a surprise, if only because 99.99% of the people who pick up The Hunters Hunted II will not only have experience with character creation, but specifically WoD characters. For those that might have missed human/hunter rules in things like The Hunters Hunted and the Second Edition Player’s Guide, it’s very similar to making a vampire, except you have for freebie points and one less Attribute point. I would have loved an interactive character sheet as part of the PDF for this chapter. Instead, you’ll have to settle for a regular one at the end of the book. You’ll also get some new backgrounds, merits and flaws, including one of the new “Pooled Backgrounds” for V20 that have been popping up. In this case it’s a “Base of Operations.” Perhaps the most interesting aspect of character creation for a human is that you can now sub out Conviction for Conscience, which is truly an odd decision and seems more at place with ghoul family rules than monster hunters.

Chapter 3 is entitled, “Tools and Tactics,” and this does talk about one of the most overlooked aspects of a Hunter based game – actually having strategies and tactics in play when dealing with supernatural beings far more powerful than your entire party combined. I’ve seen a lot of Hunter: The Reckoning games where players and storytellers viewed it more as a hack and slash affair or even a dungeon crawl, and that made the game not only suck, but generally ended with dead parties. So this is probably a godsend to anyone who has ever had to deal with that type of Hunter based chronicle. Even better, this chapter really goes into detail about non fighting tactics as well, such as research, stealthy shadowing and giving die bonuses for effective plans and strategies. I also enjoyed the sidebar about how useless guns really are for hunters. It reminded me of the time a player absolutely HAD to have an elephant gun for his hunter and what happened when he dealt with frenzied Brujah full of Celerity and Fortitude. He died. If there is one chapter I would strongly press for gamers of all experience levels to read – it’s this one. I know I’ve pointed out that a lot of this book feels geared for beginning gamers or people new to V:TM or WoD, but this chapter highlights so many things that I see many veteran gamers fail to do correctly, that it’s worth flipping through several times over. Even though it’s V:TM oriented, it can still be applied to pretty much any game setting, be it D&D, Call of Cthulhu, Tunnels & Trolls or what have you.

Chapter 4 is “Numina,” and it’s where you’ll find all the different supernatural abilities Hunters can get. Want to be a Hedge Mage? Look up your options here. Want True Faith? Ditto. A myriad of psychic powers? You’ll find them in this chapter. There are several new Numina that weren’t in the previous versions of V:TM. I especially enjoyed the nod to Shadowrun in one of them, even if it was entirely unintentional. Let’s make a Pyrokinetic Technomancer! WHEE!

Chapter 5 is “Storytelling,” and as you might have surmised, this is the chapter on running a Hunter based game. It’s a very long chapter, talking about the different ways to run a game (action, slow burn mystery), the difference between one shots and longer campaigns, and even how to deal with the myriad of vampiric options within the World of Darkness. After all, hunters running afoul of a Camarilla Toreador will not encounter the same thing as a Sabbat War Party or those who stumble upon an Inconnu’s haven. There’s a wealth of information here, but much of it the average V:TM gamer, especially if they are a Storyteller, already knows.

Chapter 6 is “Organizations and Resources,” and aside from my previously mentioned issues with layouts and content grouping, this is my second favorite chapter in the book. In the original The Hunters Hunted, which was less than half the length of this book with a page count of only eighty-seven pages, actual hunter organizations had such small write-ups that you didn’t get an in-depth look at any of them. For example, the Society of Leopold only got a page and a half entry, and it’s the biggest hunter group of them all! In this book, we get TEN pages, five and a half of which are mechanics. The NSA, Arcanum and the like get similarly expanded history and descriptions, really allowing players and Storytellers alike to come away with a better understanding of the group and their internal hierarchy. A couple groups from the original Hunters Hunted are missing from HH2, like the Center for Disease Control and Children of Osiris, but they’ve been replaced by bits on mob families (Italian, Russian, Chinese and Japanese), the Knights of St, George and two Muslim factions. I will say the this section assumes you know who certain named individuals are from previous released V:TM books, which is unfortunate and completely at odds with the rest of the newcomer friendly text, but it’s a minor issue at best, and even fledgling gamers will still be able to put two and two together here. There’s also some huge gaps of text missing here, like the Sabbat Survivor Merit, which is missing the entire description and point cost, but that will no doubt be fixed when the official release comes around.

Finally we come to the Appendix, which features some pre-generated characters. This is a true White Wolf (and especially V:TM) staple, although oddly enough, the character sheets don’t always match up with the bios givens. Many bios read as if the characters should have specific new merits, flaws and backgrounds, but on the actual sheet they are missing. For example, the very first character, “The Obsessed Detective,” is SCREAMING for the three (or even five) point Flaw “Credulous,” but it’s not there on the character sheet. Or how about the fact the Paranoid Surveyor is missing, oh, the PARANOID FLAW made especially for this book? Little things like that that you won’t notice and that won’t really matter…unless you’re a professional reviewer looking at this thing. I really enjoy the pregens besides these glaring omissions, and the artwork for the characters is arguably the best in the book.

All in all, despite niggling minor flaws scattered throughout the book, I’d say that The Hunters Hunted is easily the best release for V20 so far. Generally the PDF and the Print on Demand versions of V20 books are much cheaper than the Kickstarter versions (because backers get extra perks and special limited editions of the products), so when this does go on sale to the general public, it should probably with a price tag that will make this worth picking up by any V:TM fan, even if they already are more than familiar with the bulk of content betwixt its pages.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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