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The closest Marvel analogue is the Shadowline universe. It was more or less Marvel does WoD.
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Feb 19, 2017 08:10
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So what I'm reading is that the only real superpowers that Hunters have, before they get in to weird conspiracies, is the actual determination to do something about the world. Which kind of fits in with the whole thing of the WoD in a nutshell. Neat.Brainiac Five posted:Red Harvest, Yojimbo, and A Fistful of Dollars are about a man coming to a bad place, experiencing a bit of the violence involved there, and deciding to annihilate everyone involved, leaving only a handful of named characters alive. Well in Sanjuro it ends with Yojimbo basically calling what he does horrible and shouting at the would-be samurai trying to copy him to go do something actually productive with their lives so...
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Feb 19, 2017 08:10
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Setting aside that Ennis Punisher, which Brainiac Five implicitly referring to, post-dates Hunter by several years: Hunter is inspired by grim spree killers who often as not are protected by genre convention as they are by explicit supernatural power. Punisher is a good example of both ways of looking at this, because at different times he has been both characters. He's also an illustration of how fiction can simply assign implicit genre protection to characters to allow them to stay on the same plane as explicitly fantastic peers while fighting fantastic enemies - and how little the genre changes when you cross over from implicit genre protection to being an angel or Frankenstein or whatever. There's no real reason to try to make that implicit genre protection explicitly supernatural, although it doesn't much matter in a practical way if it is or not. Cease to Hope fucked around with this message at 08:14 on Feb 19, 2017 |
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Feb 19, 2017 08:10
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citybeatnik posted:So what I'm reading is that the only real superpowers that Hunters have, before they get in to weird conspiracies, is the actual determination to do something about the world. Which kind of fits in with the whole thing of the WoD in a nutshell. Neat. Sure, what differentiates them is that the Continental Op/30-year-old Mulberry Field/The Man With No Name are acting justly within the context of their works, it's from their perspective, etc. Cease to Hope posted:Setting aside that Ennis Punisher, which Brainiac Five implicitly referring to, post-dates Hunter by a lot: Ennis started writing Punisher in 2000, and The Slavers was published in 2004. Hunter: the Vigil was published in 2008.
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Feb 19, 2017 08:15
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Brainiac Five posted:Ennis started writing Punisher in 2000, and The Slavers was published in 2004. Hunter: the Vigil was published in 2008. Huh, that's a few years earlier than I thought. In any event. Hunter: the Reckoning came out in 1999. At the time HtR was being written, Punisher was a literal angel of death. (It wasn't well-received.) Cease to Hope fucked around with this message at 08:23 on Feb 19, 2017 |
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Feb 19, 2017 08:21
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Cease to Hope posted:Huh, that's a few years earlier than I thought. In any event. Hunter: the Reckoning came out in 1999. Hunter: the Reckoning is a very different animal from Vigil, what with it being a game where you get superpowers to fight monsters to hold off the end of the world.
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Feb 19, 2017 08:23
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To be really pretentious, Hunters are supernatural in the way Judge Holden or Anton Chigurh or Reverend Harry Powell is supernatural- they're clearly something beyond humanity but there's nothing obviously inhuman about them.
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Feb 19, 2017 08:28
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Jesus Christ, why is adding rules and mechanics for being a lot more driven in monster hunting than a normal person supernatural? What other part of hunter is beyond normal human stuff outside stuff like VASCU? How is Joe Scmoe, amateur vampire hunter with a nail gun, supernatural? Heck, does ANYTHING imply hunters are supernatural besides the book not about hunting monsters not including stuff about hunting monsters? You have essentially been saying a game focused on hunting and killing monsters instead of just investigating stuff having additional rules and mechanics for doing so means they must be supernatural because otherwise the book not about hunting and killing monsters would already have all that. Do I have your argument right? Edit OK wait, are you even arguing they are supernatural? They are supernatural in the same way Zangief is, just hardwork.
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Feb 19, 2017 08:29
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xanthan posted:Jesus Christ, why is adding rules and mechanics for being a lot more driven in monster hunting than a normal person supernatural? What other part of hunter is beyond normal human stuff outside stuff like VASCU? How is Joe Scmoe, amateur vampire hunter with a nail gun, supernatural? Heck, does ANYTHING imply hunters are supernatural besides the book not about hunting monsters not including stuff about hunting monsters? Okay. There is a Hunter tactic which allows you to cut out the parts of an Awakened soul that connect to the Realms Supernal through brain surgery. Is this natural? Does the Nimbus reside in the frontal lobe?
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Feb 19, 2017 08:33
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Late to the party, but my favored interpretation of Cheiron is that the board is absolutely a bunch of lovecraftian gribblies, but they're actually well intentioned refugees from some other place where something bad went down. However, their decision to start up a company as a cover, because it seemed like a good idea at the time, has kind of gotten away from them. They actually have very little control over the company due to the bureaucratic mess that the company has become. All the really evil poo poo that Cheiron does in 100% normal humans, who have basically usurped control of the company from the Cthulus that supposedly run it.
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Feb 19, 2017 08:34
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Brainiac Five posted:Okay. There is a Hunter tactic which allows you to cut out the parts of an Awakened soul that connect to the Realms Supernal through brain surgery. Is this natural? Does the Nimbus reside in the frontal lobe? Depends, can any brain surgeon do it is this like a conspiracy level thing where having access to things that are explicitly supernatural is normal? To put it shorter, could any brain surgeon do that without having to join any organization? Edit You are talking about a tactic specifically about psychics whose power is based in their brain, not ripping magic out. Fantastic Alice fucked around with this message at 08:43 on Feb 19, 2017 |
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Feb 19, 2017 08:37
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Obligatum VII posted:Late to the party, but my favored interpretation of Cheiron is that the board is absolutely a bunch of lovecraftian gribblies, but they're actually well intentioned refugees from some other place where something bad went down. However, their decision to start up a company as a cover, because it seemed like a good idea at the time, has kind of gotten away from them. They actually have very little control over the company due to the bureaucratic mess that the company has become. All the really evil poo poo that Cheiron does in 100% normal humans, who have basically usurped control of the company from the Cthulus that supposedly run it. "Weee jusssssst wanted to hellllllppp...." "where did it go ssssso wrrrrong...."
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Feb 19, 2017 08:39
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xanthan posted:Depends, can any brain surgeon do it is this like a conspiracy level thing where having access to things that are explicitly supernatural is normal? Not by the rules, since only Hunters can purchase the Tactic via Practical XP. Now, we could argue that though the text disallows any other character from performing it, that's not what's meant or whatever and any Mage with Life and Mind could permanently destroy another Mage's connection to the Supernal.
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Feb 19, 2017 08:40
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Obligatum VII posted:Late to the party, but my favored interpretation of Cheiron is that the board is absolutely a bunch of lovecraftian gribblies, but they're actually well intentioned refugees from some other place where something bad went down. However, their decision to start up a company as a cover, because it seemed like a good idea at the time, has kind of gotten away from them. They actually have very little control over the company due to the bureaucratic mess that the company has become. All the really evil poo poo that Cheiron does in 100% normal humans, who have basically usurped control of the company from the Cthulus that supposedly run it. That owns.
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Feb 19, 2017 08:42
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Brainiac Five posted:Okay. There is a Hunter tactic which allows you to cut out the parts of an Awakened soul that connect to the Realms Supernal through brain surgery. Is this natural? Does the Nimbus reside in the frontal lobe? If anything, that's proof that in Hunter-verse, the wizards, witches, and sorcerers Hunters are fighting are not the same as Awakened mages.
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Feb 19, 2017 08:43
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The whole purpose of the Lie is to cut off humanity's access to the Supernal. It would make sense that, you know, the physics of the Lie can be used to cut off access to the Supernal.
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Feb 19, 2017 08:45
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LatwPIAT posted:If anything, that's proof that in Hunter-verse, the wizards, witches, and sorcerers Hunters are fighting are not the same as Awakened mages. Except it works on Awakened Mages, and Awakened Mages are described as witches in the Division Six write-up. It's harder to perform on Mages, but you can still cut the Nimbus right out of a Mage with surgery. Tuxedo Catfish posted:The whole purpose of the Lie is to cut off humanity's access to the Supernal. It would make sense that, you know, the physics of the Lie can be used to cut off access to the Supernal. So why don't the Exarchs just shut off access to the Supernal altogether if it's so easy to cut people off? Hell, why don't Mages who get hit in the head sometimes lose their magic?
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Feb 19, 2017 08:46
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Really out of touch with OPP stuff, but: If I liked the spirit books from Werewolf, Geist and that one Slasher supplement, what are some new cool books I can get?
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Feb 19, 2017 08:46
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Brainiac Five posted:Not by the rules, since only Hunters can purchase the Tactic via Practical XP. Now, we could argue that though the text disallows any other character from performing it, that's not what's meant or whatever and any Mage with Life and Mind could permanently destroy another Mage's connection to the Supernal. Looked it up and you at exaggerating the hell out of what they do. They mess up the part of someone's brain that let's them do psychic things or magic. Or is giving someone a brain injuy magic now? You are essentially saying there can not be a chunk of brain related to the ability to use magic or if there is normal people can't touch it. A side bar even talks about a mage getting their magic back through surgey as a plot hook. Fantastic Alice fucked around with this message at 08:56 on Feb 19, 2017 |
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Feb 19, 2017 08:54
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Brainiac Five posted:So why don't the Exarchs just shut off access to the Supernal altogether if it's so easy to cut people off? Hell, why don't Mages who get hit in the head sometimes lose their magic? Oracles gummed up the works, human body is remarkably resilient, a program of mass lobotomization of mages would probably ruffle some feathers.
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Feb 19, 2017 08:55
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Brainiac Five posted:So Hunters have more willpower than any normal human being. Okay. So we can describe that as a supernatural power in the same way Batman's ability to fight a dozen people at once is effectively supernatural, or we could insist that it's normal. All player characters, even the standard nWoD 1.0 blue-book-only PCs, are already mechanically exceptional by mortal standards at chargen. That doesn't mean that there's something inherently supernatural about blue-book mortal characters.
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Feb 19, 2017 09:19
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I would much prefer circular magechat to the "is (comic franchise) (genre convention)?" Chat
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Feb 19, 2017 09:27
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That one hunter lobotomy can only make sense in the context of mage if it involves, like, crippling someone's ability to use their imagination to envision things, or to concentrate hard. So, there's no reason you couldn't give a mage a lobotomy that robs them of their magic, but your result wouldn't be a regular person who just can't do magic but rather someone with severe cognitive impairments.
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Feb 19, 2017 09:58
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Ferrinus posted:That one hunter lobotomy can only make sense in the context of mage if it involves, like, crippling someone's ability to use their imagination to envision things, or to concentrate hard. So, there's no reason you couldn't give a mage a lobotomy that robs them of their magic, but your result wouldn't be a regular person who just can't do magic but rather someone with severe cognitive impairments. So not a Hunter but a Hunter player.
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Feb 19, 2017 09:59
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I would assume a frontal lobotomy would make executing wizbiz very difficult without rending you from the supernal entire or whatever overwrought nonsense.
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Feb 19, 2017 10:02
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Alright, so I got bored, and spent an hour or two smashing together a rough fix for Beast. It jettisons most of the (atrocious) world building and "no, beasts are the good guys! really! really!" in favor of a more "rebellion against genre and destiny" thing. Many sections and much needs expansion. Obviously a rough draft, but what the hell? Might go back to it, might not. Might turn it into something completely different. Lemme know what you think https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WcOjQ3mvKTkliYIUISsWdBHYpw2z_JAHpmkAmn-fLJo/edit?usp=sharing
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Feb 19, 2017 10:06
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Mr. Maltose posted:I would assume a frontal lobotomy would make executing wizbiz very difficult without rending you from the supernal entire or whatever overwrought nonsense. Yeah, the point is it doesn't scan for there to be a Wizard Gland that someone could just remove, since that runs counter to everything else in every CoD line including Hunter (namely that in CoD, dualism is true and the soul is real). So we're left to conclude that either the wizard lobotomy is more grievous than the book presents, or it's got some kind of magic of its own behind it. Obviously an icepick to the dome will stop someone casting spells just fine.
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Feb 19, 2017 10:07
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Attorney at Funk posted:Yeah, the point is it doesn't scan for there to be a Wizard Gland that someone could just remove, since that runs counter to everything else in every CoD line including Hunter (namely that in CoD, dualism is true and the soul is real). So we're left to conclude that either the wizard lobotomy is more grievous than the book presents, or it's got some kind of magic of its own behind it. Obviously an icepick to the dome will stop someone casting spells just fine. It doesn't really need magic behind it unless I've drastically missed something about Mage. The description notes that it's targeting the areas of the brain that contain the 'reflexive memories' that you use when casting spells and shorting them out, rather than removing the Wizard Gland. The more developed these memories and how widespread they are (Gnosis and Arcanum dots), the harder this is to do without also hitting other memories. It's also worth noting that you can still get those skills back, you just have to redevelop them from scratch rather than relying on your previous experience. There isn't a Wizard Lobe but there are specific parts of the brain that usually control things like reading, writing, listening to music or playing music. It's not that far out there to say that imposing your will on the world in the way a Mage does activates specific parts of the brain. The surgery burns out the brain's muscle memory (see: reflexive memories) for those actions. It's definitely still slightly crazy but it doesn't need actual magic behind it.
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Feb 19, 2017 10:30
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RPZip posted:It doesn't really need magic behind it unless I've drastically missed something about Mage. The description notes that it's targeting the areas of the brain that contain the 'reflexive memories' that you use when casting spells and shorting them out, rather than removing the Wizard Gland. The more developed these memories and how widespread they are (Gnosis and Arcanum dots), the harder this is to do without also hitting other memories. It's also worth noting that you can still get those skills back, you just have to redevelop them from scratch rather than relying on your previous experience. You don't cast spells with your brain at all, is the thing, and insofar as you do it's with basically the same part of your brain you use to daydream or something. So like I said, it doesn't have to be magic, but if it isn't magic it's way more invasive and has way deeper side-effects than the Tactic text suggests.
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Feb 19, 2017 10:36
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Brainiac Five posted:Is the movie John Wick horror now too? Yes, tons of reviews have caught on to the fact that John Wick is effectively the Monster. He's the Boogeyman that the others fear, and the stupid people that whistle past the graveyard going "Please, John Wick is old and worn down, there's no way he can do all the things they say he does" die horrifically. Brainiac Five posted:So why don't the Exarchs just shut off access to the Supernal altogether if it's so easy to cut people off? Hell, why don't Mages who get hit in the head sometimes lose their magic? What makes you think they don't? As for the Exarchs, they aren't in charge. They didn't make the world Fall, they don't direct the Lie. They are just some assholes slightly higher up the food chain than a normal Mage, they certainly aren't running things unopposed.
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Feb 19, 2017 12:34
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LatwPIAT posted:I believe it. Not because he says so, but because said trans friends have come out and said "I'm trans and friends with Zak Smith" or words to that effect. I don't think those people are lying. In fairness, Sarah Horrocks, Zak's collaborator on this project is both a personal friend of his and a trans woman, and has been tweeting about how she thinks the portrayal of trans women in this app is cool and good. Personally, while I respect her insight as a critic, I find her artistic output and cultural commentary just as tiresomely don't-cut-yourself-on-my-EDGE-sheeple as Zak's so I'm not really surprised they have each other's backs on this.
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Feb 19, 2017 12:57
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Brainiac Five posted:Okay. There is a Hunter tactic which allows you to cut out the parts of an Awakened soul that connect to the Realms Supernal through brain surgery. Is this natural? Does the Nimbus reside in the frontal lobe? It's in a book about witches where not all of the witches are those Awakened to the Supernal Realms, but mostly, I kind of think the most parsimonious solution to the dilemma posed here is that White Wolf development oversight is not always the most circumspect and occasionally a bad or incoherent idea gets through in what is often otherwise a good book? I mean, were you a fan of multiple action Fighting Styles in 1e?
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Feb 19, 2017 13:29
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Part of me is definitely glad that even discussing if Hunters are supernatural can't escape the horrible gravity of Magechat. I like Hunter the Vigil well enough, but I feel like I am the only person who prefers Hunter the Reckoning. I am sure it has to do with playing Reckoning a lot in High school, but I like the idea of regular people that are ultimately ruined utterly trying to save the world. There are many mechanical problems, but the splatbooks did a good job of making the creeds make sense.
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Feb 19, 2017 13:49
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Attorney at Funk posted:You don't cast spells with your brain at all, is the thing, and insofar as you do it's with basically the same part of your brain you use to daydream or something. So like I said, it doesn't have to be magic, but if it isn't magic it's way more invasive and has way deeper side-effects than the Tactic text suggests. You actually do. Sort of. A mage needs to envision and imagine the form the spell takes, and one of the examples given for a use of Mind with the imperial practices in Imperial Mysteries was stealing imagos. I mean, obviously magic springs from something deeper and more profound than just thinkmeats, but the ability to envision spells is necessary to cast.
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Feb 19, 2017 14:09
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It's not that lobotomising a mage wouldn't stop them from deliberately casting spells - it likely would. It's that it would also drive them Mad, so you'd end up with uncontrollable magical effects going off around them. Sometimes, though, a badly-written Tactic is just a badly-written tactic.
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Feb 19, 2017 14:37
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Lord_Hambrose posted:Part of me is definitely glad that even discussing if Hunters are supernatural can't escape the horrible gravity of Magechat. Honestly I find Vigil to be much better at humans fighting off monsters, seeing as in Reckoning the Hunters are just as supernatural as the things they fight.
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Feb 19, 2017 15:00
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Obligatum VII posted:Late to the party, but my favored interpretation of Cheiron is that the board is absolutely a bunch of lovecraftian gribblies, but they're actually well intentioned refugees from some other place where something bad went down. However, their decision to start up a company as a cover, because it seemed like a good idea at the time, has kind of gotten away from them. They actually have very little control over the company due to the bureaucratic mess that the company has become. All the really evil poo poo that Cheiron does in 100% normal humans, who have basically usurped control of the company from the Cthulus that supposedly run it. Honestly, I always read this as the survivors of the OWoD End Times come to the NWoD to try and make sure it doesn't all happen again...
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Feb 19, 2017 15:43
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Trying to 'prove' Hunters are supernatural is like trying to 'prove' that vampires are technically alive: you can make a case for it, but only if you deliberately ignore why Hunters are framed as normal human beings and vampires, despite moving around, needing to eat, and being able to reproduce, are dead. Vampires are dead, in spite of all that, because that is the constraint of the genre and explicitly written into the setting. Hunters are regular people because that is the constraint of their genre and they are explicitly written as non-supernatural by the standards of the fictional world they inhabit. If you decide otherwise, you're free to do so, but you're deliberately ignoring the intent and explicit descriptions given to you by the game line. You're not smarter than the people who read the book and decide to accept what it says. You're not stupider either! But you're definitely not extra clever or special.
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Feb 19, 2017 15:53
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Clearly the best group is VASCU. They actively are trying to protect humanity and were trench coats in the rain. It's like the X-Files but better.
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Feb 19, 2017 16:15
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hangedman1984 posted:Honestly I find Vigil to be much better at humans fighting off monsters, seeing as in Reckoning the Hunters are just as supernatural as the things they fight. Are they, though? Their (very small) power comes from without, from the Messengers. Did they really change in a fundamental way, or can these powers be given and taken away at any moment, not being actually part of their nature?
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Feb 19, 2017 16:37
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