I'm finding myself increasingly charmed by White Wolf's anti-marketing for this series. The Storytellers Companion (Kraig Blackwelder) is not for players. Really. Seriously. It admonishes us, "Players, don't read this, or you'll ruin your game." And the whole purpose of the book itself is to sub in for five other big White Wolf hardcovers ("You don't need to own Vampire: the Masquerade if you have this book"), which is pretty darned ambitious for a 64-page softcover.
On the other hand, maybe there's something more cunning at work here. Like maybe they're generously absolving me of needing to collect the rest of the World of Darkness because they know they're going to release 20+ Hunter: the Reckoning supplements and they're fine with locking me into the Hunter ecosystem. That would explain their bizarre insistence on not using Aggravated damage in the Hunter version of the rules. It's the main source of incompatibility with the other WoD games and it's so essential to crossover gameplay that they reinvent it here in all but name. Werewolves and vampires can soak and heal lethal damage, except when it's done by their special weaknesses and so when they're exposed to silver or sunlight (respectively), you're supposed to mark it down with an "X" and just sort of remember that it doesn't heal normally. They even use the word "aggravated," but only informally. If only there were a system that formalized and standardized this, it would be so much easier.
The explanation given is that Aggravated damage wasn't included because "humans aren't really subject to it." And, honestly, if it bothers you so much, "It's up to you, then, to revise the Hunter rules if you want them to be more in keeping with those of other Storyteller games."
I find this whole stance to be ideologically fascinating. The number two rpg company in the entire world is like, "fuck cross-brand synergy and fuck you for wanting it." Arguably pretty punk. Definitely pretty annoying. White Wolf company culture c. 1999 must have been wild.
So most of this book is just lists of powers for various supernatural threats, but there is some new lore being dropped. We learn the broad strokes of the metaplot planned for the Imbued. In a previous age, the gods empowered mighty heroes to battle demons, but in their victory they became corrupt and decadent and the heroes were cursed and cast down while the Creator, chief of the gods, turned his back to the world and allowed it to slide into a fallen age. But the wheel still turns and while the Creator has not yet returned to the world, his Ministers are more forgiving and so they selected a new crop of heroes to mitigate the coming Apocalypse. However, having learned their lesson from the prior age, these heroes are weaker than the ones of old, and subsequently forced to rely on each other.
But the backstory comes with a prediction for the future. The demons, realizing their peril, will attempt to split the Imbued, by offering them power in exchange for service. Some will take them up on this offer and result will be war. "In essence, history repeats itself."
I don't know what state Exalted was in at this point, but it was definitely in the works. There was an ad at the back of the core. Was there a prototype version that was more explicitly connected to the World of Darkness? Is the Storytellers Companion giving us a tantalizing glimpse into what might have been?
In hindsight, I'm glad we got the Exalted we got. It's arguably my favorite fantasy setting and I don't think it would have worked as well if it required the WoD for context. But if the Hunter: the Reckoning metaplot isn't precisely a connection to my favorite game, it's still pretty intriguing on its own merits. If nothing else, it's ambitious, which in my opinion is when White Wolf is at its best.
On the mechanical front, the new enemy powers are largely fine, but with the Storyteller System's quixotic sense of balance. Maybe it's just me, but if a power is less deadly than a knife, it should be free and if it's less deadly than a gun, it should be level 2 at most (it's hard to say exactly, because an undetectable gun is a significant advantage, but a gun powered by your soul or your health points or the magical resource that prevents you from flying into an uncontrollable frenzy is a significant disadvantage.) It doesn't really matter here, because you can just give NPCs whatever combination of powers you want without regard for point costs, but it still nags at me aesthetically.
Of more concern for the long-term health of the game are the multiple mind control powers that bypass Hunters' mind control resistance by mind controlling them into not activating their resistance. The implication being that you can shake off any effect by spending Conviction, but only if you want to spend the point and can remember to do so, so the scariest powers make it so you don't want to resist them or forget that resistance is an option. It winds up feeling a little bit Calvinball to me. I don't think it would be a problem for the game if Imbued hunters just had S-tier mental resistance. Just an explicit "nothing can coerce, trick or otherwise prevent you from spending a point of Conviction and in fact you can spend one in response to a mental power to prevent it from taking hold, even if your character is unaware of the enemy using the power." Then we could still have mind-controlled hunters who were hit when their Conviction was low, but it'd be a more significant campaign event and there'd be precedent in place for them to shake off long-term effects over time.
I guess my feeling here is that "not being brainwashed by the supernatural" is like the Imbued's whole deal and it's only somewhat a benefit to them because when the vampire elder finds out this mere mortal can't be Dominated . . . they'll think of other, more permanent things to do instead.
Finally, there is a suggestion in the "Witches, Wizards, and Warlocks" chapter that high-level Spirit specialists may be able to permanently sever a hunter from the Messengers, removing their ability to use Conviction and Edges entirely. This isn't necessarily a balance issue per se, because it's undoubtedly more involved than just, you know, killing them, and if a hunter is in a mage's power long enough for this to be an issue, then they're already effectively defeated. But it rubs me the wrong way. Of course, if I were reading a Mage book and it said that the Messengers were completely beyond a mage's power, that'd bug me too. I suppose it's a matter of feeling like one game's cosmology shouldn't totally preempt the other's, so it should neither be too easy nor too difficult to mess with the Hunter-Messenger connection. It's possible that this was meant as the sort of background threat that gives hunters chills, but it probably deserves an entire section to itself if so. If the Imbued condition is severable, even if only the abstract, then that's something that Hunters are going to be extremely interested in - both to prevent the effect from being weaponized and potentially to seek out the effect to be "cured" of their imposed condition. In any case, you'd need more than a throw-away line to address it properly.
Overall, I found the Storytellers Companion to be an easy, entertaining read, with only one exception (the changeling power that could potentially mind control its victims into committing rape). Whether it's better or worse than statting Hunter: the Reckoning antagonists straight from the WoD cores, I am unfortunately not experienced enough an H:tR Storyteller to say.
Ukss Contribution: My favorite thing in this book was the revelation about the Imbued's role in the cycle of ages, but I can't use that. It's too fundamentally Exalted. It's been an omnipresent danger throughout the Ukss entries - that I would pick so many things that remind me of my favorite game that I'd wind up piecemeal recreating my favorite game. I need to go with something more central to Hunter: the Reckoning.
Ghosts have a power called "Raven's Foil," which makes a random item seem incredibly valuable ("a fast food burger becomes the most delectable of all possible meals.") That's just a fun bit of trickster tech. Somebody in Ukss is going to use it extensively.
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