GoCorral

Continuing our Chinese based review of the World of Darkness book line!

Hunter: The Reckoning

Hunter: The Reckoning provides rules for playing as humans that fight back against the monsters of World of Darkness. After humans witness magic or monsters, sometimes they become Imbued. A force known as the Heralds mark Imbued with special powers to see the monsters that exist in the World of Darkness, and a compulsion to kill those monsters. The reveal of monsters is similar to the reveal of the aliens in They Live. Suddenly the Imbued’s eyes are open and they see signs of monsters everywhere. The Imbued also know that alerting others to the truth is useless. The public would rather keep their heads in the sand than confront the truth and the government is already compromised by monsters.

Imbued receive superpowers that put them on even footing with vampires, kuei-jin and other foes in the World of Darkness. All Imbued possess the ability to see through magical illusions and disguises and can resist magical mental control from the creatures of the World of Darkness. Imbued also receive superpowers similar to the Disciplines vampires choose from. As examples the superpowers provide: a shield against monsters, a magic laser beam to shoot at monsters, or invisibility from monsters. There are nine groups of Imbued powers based on three guiding Virtues of Zeal, Vision, and Mercy.

Each of the three Virtues has three groups of powers called Creeds. The Creed serves a similar game purpose to a vampire’s clan or a kuei-jin’s Dharma. Imbued have scores in the Virtues which dictate how many points they have for Creed powers. An Imbued with a Virtue beyond 6 starts to go crazy as they become obsessed with slaying monsters.

Imbued have a resource called Conviction for their powers. Conviction takes the place of blood for vampires and chi for kuei-jin. Each power requires at least 1 Conviction to activate. Imbued can also risk an additional 1 Conviction on a power. This boosts the power and if the power succeeds, the Imbued gets all Conviction returned plus 1 additional Conviction. Thus Imbued are encouraged to play aggressively with their Conviction points. There are a few other ways to recover Conviction, but the main method is this pushing strategy.

Conviction is also the method for advancement on the Virtue tracks. The maximum Conviction is 10 and 10 Conviction can be exchanged for 1 Virtue point. So not only is risky behavior how your Conviction pool regenerates, it’s also how you upgrade your character. All the other stats of the Imbued are the same as other World of Darkness characters with Attributes and Abilities.

The mechanics of Hunter: The Reckoning work well together. The Storyteller system is usually designed to adjudicate conflicts between a PC’s monster side and human side as they participate in an adventure. The conflict within Imbued is between their human side and their hunter side. Imbued long to confront the darkness, but in doing so they lose their individuality.

The presentation of Hunter: The Reckoning is goofy. While the rules make sense, the lore is a mess. There are dozens of notes, diary entries, emails, and “screen caps” of blog posts that provide additional juicy information about how the Imbued fight back against the World of Darkness. It’s all lore, but it’s organized in such a disjointed way that it’s very difficult to consume in a whole and coherent way. Perhaps this was the author’s intention so that the reader experiences disorientation similar to how an Imbued might feel as they enter the World of Darkness? I don’t know, but I found it frustrating.

If you’re interested in the Hunter: The Reckoning book for your games you can check it out at DriveThruRPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/639/hunter-the-reckoning