Thou Shalt not Suffer a Witch to Live

Witch Hunter Second Edition Review

            This was a book that I was looking forward to since I found out there were doing a second edition during the summer. Sadly I missed out on the Kickstarter for it but they released it before Christmas so I fairly amused. Made for good reading over the Thanksgiving break. It also helps that I enjoy games in which you hunt down and kill supernatural critters. It’s why Hunter the Vigil is one of my favorite games.

            Witch Hunter is a game in which you play as well … witch hunters, tracking down and eliminating the minions of the Adversary.  The book has a very Judeo-Christian overtones, making use of such stories as King Solomon. If you’re not a fan of religious overtones then you may not like the game. Though to the games credit it does leave room for interpretation on the exact nature of God and Satan (who is referred to as the Adversary).

The Setting:

            Witch Hunter takes place during the late 17^th century, around the year 1689. They’ve made several changes to the setting to make it a unique take on an alternate history. In the game vampires, werewolves, witches and other assorted creatures are real. The everyday man is semi aware of this fact. There is also a little bit of magic left in the world. You play as a witch hunter, a mortal who knows the truth and takes up the challenge of protecting others from the supernatural and hunting them down.

            It all starts with the biblical king Solomon. He is aware of the dark forces in the world and he decides he’s going to protect future generations. He gathers up the most wisest and skilled magicians in the world and begins to work on a ritual called the Great Seal. However one of the magi is fooled by the Adversary and the seal is flawed. The forces of the Adversary are able to get through, though at a reduced rate than before. There is also a little bit of magic leaking through which allows for the continuation of magic (in its various forms).

Fast forward a few centuries and we arrive to the dark ages and the black plague. The disease kills more men than women. This creates an opportunity for women to step up and fill in for roles that they previously weren’t allowed in. Even after the plague women still continue in their new roles. Kinda like the 1940’s and WWII. Well the plague was devastating the effects of European diseases wasn’t as deadly as it historically was. Especially for the Aztec empire, who use their dark and evil magic’s to mitigate the damage done to their population. This leaves them in a position to fight Spain’s claims in the New World.  If this is your first time with the game then I highly recommend going back and finding at least a copy of the Aztec Empire. While the rules are first edition the setting info in it is amazing.

Now the PC’s are members of the Orders, a group of organizations that developed to fight the minions of the Adversary. The book outlines several major ones with notations about there being smaller ones and more info on those in an upcoming book. The Orders have come together and formed a loose alliance as it were, so that they can better fight the Adversary and also to offer up aide and protection from the Church.

Adventures can occur anywhere in the world, though the setting material mostly focus on Europe and the New World. The biggest changes to the New World is the Aztec Empire which stretches into parts of what is now the western southern states and down through central México.

The Rules:

            The second chapter covers most of the rules you need to play the game. It uses a d10 system, and if you’re familiar with games like Legend of the Five Rings (L5R) or the World of Darkness games  then you’re going to have a smooth transition into Witch Hunter. Even if you are not familiar with either of those games the rules are pretty straightforward and easy to pick up on.

            To resolve an action you are typically going to roll a dice pool created from an Attribute + Skill. Much like in L5R you can’t have a dice pool greater than 10 dice. So for every two dice over 10 you gain an automatic success. And much like the World of Darkness games you need to roll a 7 or higher to succeed at an action. Depending on the difficulty of the task you’ll need anywhere from 1 success to 5 or 6.

            You can garner better effects on a role by making a wager, which is similar in application to making a raise in L5R. If you roll a 10 then you get to re roll that dice until it stops coming up 10. On the flip side if you roll more 1’s than you did success then the action suffers a complication of some sort. This isn’t like a botch in other games, as you can still succeed at the action and still have more 1’s than you did actual success.       

            For combat they have a series of style talents. Think of these as being like combat special moves feats. There are three basic level for talents (both the combat fighting style and the non combat skill based type); Basic, Great and Heroic.

            These mechanics are rounded out with a True Faith state that measures your belief in a higher power and a Damnation trait that shows how far you’ve fallen from the path of the righteous. You also have Hero Points which you can use to do a variety of things from gaining access to talents your character doesn’t normally have to saving your characters life.

            Finally your character has a Virtue and a Vice. Veterans of World of Darkness games will be very accustomed to how these work. A vice is a weakness that a character has. Something that may draw him away from the path of the righteous. They can be activated by the GM if he feels it’s appropriate for that situation. So a character who has a vice in say greed may have it activated by the GM if while on a mission the character spots something that peeks his interest. On the flip side characters also have virtues, and as the name implies it’s a characters strength, a means of showing how righteous the character may be.

            There is also a system for magic. There are six types of magic with in the setting. You have your three good ones of Prayer, Animism, and Hermetic. Then you have three villainous ones of Diabolism, Necromancy and Witch Craft.

The Good

            Witch Hunter is an easy game to transition into. I games centered around hunting down the things that go bump in the night. As I mentioned earlier Hunter the Vigil is one of my all time favorite games (and is still my favorite of the nWoD). It’s alternate history is pretty good. One of the most interesting aspects of the game is its use of the Aztecs and how depraved they are. I like how the game allows for more gender equity than was truly present at that time.

            I love the way they handled fighting styles. It adds a nice variety and spin to combat. The emphasis in the book on swashbuckling makes taking a combat style even more fun. We’re talking about action from movies like Pirates of the Carrabin and the Three Musketeers. While I’m mentioning the Three Musketeers, the notation on making Cardinal Richelieu a lich is just highly amusing.

            Finally I liked the rules they created for mob combat scenes and the use of minions. It makes it fairly seamless to toss hordes of bad guys at the PC’s for them to chop down in an equally heroic fashion.

The Bad

            There were really only two things that kinda annoyed me. The first is from the magic section. There is a mention of using a Grimoire in spell casting. The notation indicates that rules will be provided for in another book, but for me I like to have all the core rules in one spot. Thus the magic section feels somewhat incomplete until they release Rites and Relics.

            Finally I am somewhat miffed at the lack of diversity in the game. Outside of being Native American there isn’t much mention of anything that isn’t European. Native Americans have one Order that is truly all their own, but there isn’t one for people of African or Asian descent. I also was not pleased with the few references to Africa describing the continent as barbaric. When you see how well they handled bringing women into the setting and creating a better environment for female PC’s to play in, the lack of any real insight into other non-European cultures just leaves one wanting.  

            Considering the games more religious bent it would have been nice at least to feature an African Christian nation. Ethiopia has strong roots in Christianity after all and an Order from there would have opened the game up a bit more in my opinion. In future books I hope they work a bit harder in painting non Europeans in a positive light.

The Wrap Up

            My feelings on the matter of race aside, I find the game to be intriguing. Overall I’d give it a 4 out of 5 Fro’s. The setting is interesting enough to want to play in and I feel that the other matters are something that future supplements could fix and address. 

Looking into the Darkness

The Void 

A new RPG that I picked up recently was The Void from WildFire, makers of Cthulutech. I haven’t had much dealings with this company before. Cthulutech sounds like something I’d enjoy but overall I haven’t taken the time to look at it. Though if it’s anything like The Void I think I’d enjoy it.

The Void takes a path that I haven’t seen to often from an RPG, in that they have a creative community thing going on. The core rule book is free on DriveThru, with the option of paying for it at the amount you feel is appropriate for the work. Fans of the game are also encouraged to build on what’s in the core book and provide additional material for the game, and if it’s good enough be published by WildFire.

But lets talk about the game. The game is survival horror in space. So if you love Lovecraft you’re likely to like this game. But it also borrows from such classics as Event Horizon. But you could do a Resident Evil in space type thing with it. Or even a looming Mass Effect style Reaper threat. It’s really up to you. I think there is a lot of potential with Saturn revolution themed game.

Storyline wise the Earth has expanded to the stars. There is some kind of human presence on every planet in the solar system, and a bit beyond as well. Well not Pluto. Humanities exploration of the solar system has drawn the attention of an ancient being. A star is on a course towards Earth called the Cthonian Star. Strange and ancient creatures are awakening or in some cases arriving to prepare the solar system for it’s new masters.

All of this is being kept away from the greater populace of course. And that job falls to the PC’s. You play as Wardens, agents of the UWC, tasked with investigating strange things and then … killing them. Oh also covering that shit up. So it’s kinda like being a Man in Black, only in space.

The mechanics are fairly straight forward. If you’ve played the New World of Darkness or Shadowrun then you’re already familiar with how the dice are going to work. You create a dice pool from your attribute and skill and score success on a 5 or 6. Depending on how hard the task is will determine how many success you need to succeed. You also have advantages and talents that could affect the outcome of your roll.

Combat is fairly straight forward. You roll your attack dice pool and the defender rolls a defense dice pool. Bonus success adds to your damage roll. In regards to damage you also have armor that can subtract from the amount of damage you take. Though the more damage you take the less effective it will become overall. And of course you will start to incur dice penalties when you take to much damage.

There are no character classes in this game. Instead you are given 3 templates. You have the Enforcer, which is your typical front line solider type. You have the Investigator which does all the snooping around. Then you have the Researcher who is the science techie guy/medic. Instead of having money characters have wealth, a personal wealth and then your sponsors wealth. You also gain bonuses based on where you come from, getting the chance to choose from a list of planets or colonies throughout the solar system

There are also two pools which can affect the outcome of the game. You have a Fate dice, which allows you to avoid certain doom! There is also a Tension pool which is spent as a group. It can be spent on a variety of things to do such as re-rolls, getting a hint from the GM or buying an additional Fate point for someone who is really really having a bad day.  The trick however with Tension dice is that Tension dice spent by the players are given to the GM who can then use them for nefarious deeds.

On the plus side the game doesn’t take long to get into. One of the first few chapters has an adventure designed for both the players and the GM to learn as they go. The book is also filled to the brim with helpful side bars that sum up the contents of that particular section for quick and easy reference.

All in all if you’re familiar with most games the learning curve on this one isn’t going to be bad. And if you’re not well it won’t be that hard to pick up and go.

One of the strongest points for this game (at least for me) was the diversity in the setting. The 4 PC’s provided for the adventure hailed from different places and had a nice variety in ethnicity. You had an African, Chinese, German and Latina. The fiction that helped set the mood for the game also used a varied cast of characters that made the setting pop and come alive for me in a way that few games do currently.

On the flipside however I did find some things lacking. The book is small, and only has three monsters. I know there is a Monsters book available but the game makes frequent references to a lot of things that go bump in the night and it would have been nice to have a bit more offered. It is a cheap book, but you can’t really describe that many creatures and not really provide more meat for the PC’s to kill and investigate.

Speaking of PC’s there are only three options. Rules are provided to do a template less character but the game seems heavily geared towards using the templates. This should be remedied when the Advanced Players Guide comes out, but for now it feels like a weak spot in the game. I think The Void would have benefited heavily from maybe one to two more Warden templates. I would have likely broken the Researcher into perhaps two templates, one that is more book wormy and one that is more science techie. And perhaps an infiltrator styled template that could be used to do some deep cover work really well.

GM side I was a little bit disappointed with the magic section. I would have preferred a bit more meat to this section too. With luck there will be some additional work put into it in future books. It’s workable, just rules light. As a GM I kinda like my magic to be a bit more rules heavy than what is offered.

Overall though this is a game worth getting. You can’t argue with the price. And it has a lot of themes and places to go. You could do some nice horror style Firefly for instance. With the government theme you could also kick it old school with some space X Files. The politics behind the UWC, Earth and her colonies also leaves plenty of room for more mundane type adventures. And this point bears repeating, the game has a very nice support of minorities and people of color. You see it in the artwork and the stories and it’s something that is praise worthy in any company you find it in.

So I give this game 4 Fro’s out of 5 (I really need an icon for such things!). The game is straight forward and fast to get into. The setting is very interesting. The starter adventure makes it possible for both GM and player to learn as you go. Lack of character options and monsters aside this isn’t a game I feel you should pass on.

P.S. This setting needs psionics. Just saying, it would rule!

S.S. Blackgate

S.S. Blackgate

            The S.S. Blackgate was a fine ship. A might fine ship, that was left adrift in space. But how did it end up there? Well, it was due to the most evil use of Jenga ever, a little game called Dread. 

Your characters dead now.

            I had opted had decided to drop in on a game night hosted by my campus gaming club. The theme was horror since it was just after Halloween. I decided t play Dread because …. well it was sci fi and I don’t get to play in a sci fi game nearly enough. The basics behind Dread are simple. The game is very free form, but when the GM decides something needs to be tested you make a pull from the Jenga game. If you collapse the tower then your character dies. If the tower falls because of some other reason then something bad happens in game to the entire party. Each pull makes it harder for the next person who has to make some kind of test. You can opt not to pull and just accept a failure. Oooorrrr you can make the supreme sacrifice and knock the entire thing over. Sure you die, but you die a hero.

            So it becomes a matter of when and not if you will fail.

            My character was Captain Sisko Mannheim, whom we called Captain Sisko. Yes I went with the great Sisko. It’s my favorite show damnit! My crew included an ex spec op’s scientist who was into gene splicing, a ex spec ops doctor; who had a crush on my non human (reptile race like in V) first officer. The crew was rounded out with a tech specialist and a navigator. We were a small time military ship (about the size of Serenity from Fire Fly) enroute to pick up a VIP at what we were told was just a basic colony ship.

            Sounds simple enough right? We arrive at the rendezvous and discover that the ship has gone silent. We pull alongside it and dock. Aaaannnndddd this is where we make the first horror movie mistake, we split up. Ignoring Star Fleet General Order #15 (we had already ignored General Order #12) I go aboard the other ship with the ship’s doctor, my second in command, and the engineer. The scientist and the navigator stay behind to monitor stuff. Once aboard we decide to split up …. again. Yeah I know how bad this is. Horror movie, space, black captain. But we need to do two things at once!

             After we restore power to the ship, I go with my second in command (SiC) to the bridge to see what we can discover from the ships logs while the other two head off to the med labs to see if they can find the person trapped in a research closest (discovered from the only transmission we got). This is when things start to go screwy back on the Blackgate. So we split up again! The engineer leaves the doc so he can head to the med bay and he goes back to the Blackgate.  Surprisingly …. no one has died ….. yet.

            It doesn’t take long for us to regroup back into two groups of 3, and along the way we’ve made a lot of pulls from the Jenga tower. A …. lot. Doom is around the corner, and it hits back on my ship. Space zombie dogs are attacking the navigator and the scientist. Their battle is valiant but in the end we lose our navigator. Damn the Red Queen!!!! To make matters worse there is a random set of creature on the loose who have fucked up both the bridge and the ships engines. Not even a ship lock down is able to slow the creature down. And to top it all off something is causing stress on the docking clamps which forces means the two ships need to do an emergency disconnect!

            Meanwhile I’m facing down an eviscerated man … zombie … thing. He nearly takes out my SiC and the doctor (who admittedly saved the SiC from the zombie creature). We get into the restricted research lab and find the only survivor of the massacre. One private King, whom I begin to order around because well, I’m an ass. It’s at this point that it’s decided that we need to get to the escape pods. There is no hope of salvaging the ship and we can’t make it back to the bridge to redock with the Blackgate. We use our two grenades and make a mad dash to the escape pods, with private King taking point, because … well … I’m an ass. And this is where karma catches up to me.

            I’m having to make two pulls because my character is an alcoholic (a functioning alcoholic!) who drinks to help handle the stress of command. And being chased by zombies is sure stressful. I examine the Jenga tower and come to the conclusion that there is no way for me to pull two and live. So I knock the whole thing over and decide to go out like a champ. Sisko leaps over the railing and punches a zombie in the face and then opens firing on the horde, buying the other two (three if we count the NPC) some time to get to the pods.

            In the end only 3 of my crew members survive. The engineer and mad scientist had to get into the escape pods of the ship. The doctor gave his life saving the love of his life and she makes it to the escape pod (with the NPC in tow). The event is covered up and classified since the colony ship was really a black ops research lab that had discovered something in space better left in deep space. I get a posthumous promotion to admiral. Which is cool. I was personally happy that as the only black character in the game I wasn’t the first to die. That’s an accomplishment considering it was a horror game. J

        

    Overall I found the mechanic of using Jenga to be different but fun. It built tension in the game. I’ve played a lot of horror games but I’ve never had that much tension in a game. It was a nice change. The free formish nature of character creation and play allowed us to focus more on the characters, which was good for a one shot. The game kinda reminded me of Event Horizon, which was an awesome movie so I didn’t mind. And of course I went out like a champ. If you get the chance I recommend checking out Dread. A simple system that's easy to pick up. All in all a good night.