Human: The Victimized

Given that the consensus seems to be that the newsgroup is dying/dead, I
figured that I'd release a half finished rant that I started a few years ago
but then lost interest in and never bothered to post.


Human: the Victimized

For centuries, supernatural powers have reigned, warring among themselves,
culling the human herds and lashing out from the shadows. The creatures of
the night have held court since before the dawn of history.

Some things never change.

From amongst the throng of humanity a new and even more mysterious faction
of creatures has chosen individuals as pawns to use in their own private
war. Pumped full of unnatural power which will surely drive them mad if it
doesn't kill them first, these poor fools are clueless cat's-paws in a
deadly game whose rules they don't even know. You are the victimized!

*****

Having purchased most of the books in the "Hunter: the Reckoning" line of
products (over half of which were gained during the "Devil Made Us Do It"
sale), I have to say that with each book I have become more and more
dissatisfied and disgusted with the setting. Whereas White Wolf touted this
as a game of human empowerment against untold centuries of victimization by
the supernatural, I perceive only a tale of even greater and ultimately more
tragic violation at the hands of an even more inhuman group of entities. The
process of the imbuing and its given limitations, Second Sight, Hunter Code,
certain implied aspects of the individual creeds, the progression of the
hunt itself and most especially the actions of the Messengers all synergize
to form a game which acts mainly to degrade and devalue the characters'
fundamental freedoms of thought and action (at least as conceived by a
humanistic society). I feel that whereas the majority of the game's
mechanics could easily be kept without alteration the entirety of the
backstory would have to be reconceptualized from the ground up in order for
the setting to live up to its implied premise.

The mere manner of the imbuing and the alterations attendant to the act
serve to emasculate the character from the very start. Rather that being the
catalyst for his own transformation, the imbued is instead lead by the nose
(by mysterious forces which are beyond both his comprehension and his
capacity to actively sense) into a confrontation with the supernatural; at
which point he is "rewarded" with extranormal capacities if and only if he
acts in a manner which meets with the approval of his unknown tester.
Furthermore, the act of imbuing, which grants the character a slew of innate
capacities which aid him in future confrontations against the supernatural,
also robs him of several abilities which all common people theoretically
possess (ie. the capacity to interbreed with Garou, the ability to learn
Hedge and Sphere magic, the freedom to enter the Umbra if carried there by a
supernatural entity, etcetera). Whereas these limitations could easily be
accepted without ethical quandary if the imbuing were a purely natural
process (natural being a relative term), the fact that it is the product of
an apparently sentient agency and enacted without prior consent reduces it
to a form of metaphysical rape.

Second Sight, Hunter Code and the use of creeds continue this disturbing
trend of psychic violation. Given the assumed nature of the imbuing as a
conscious act perpetrated by an external agency, the fact that Second Sight
reveals supernatural entities as appearing "wrong" reveals an obvious
agenda. This agenda becomes even more obvious when you consider that many of
the perceptual edges seem designed expressly to reveal the most horrifying
or inhuman aspects of supernatural entities. Overall, I find the "Truth"
revealed by Second Sight and perceptual edges to be exceedingly biased.

Furthermore, the fact that members of the various creeds often seem to feel
compelled to interact with the supernatural is indicative of possible mental
tampering with the Imbued. In "Hunter Apocrypha" (admittedly not an ideal
source of information, but the only one available) Fydor repeatedly observes
in the section titled "A NOTE ON HUNTERS" that hunters seem to have certain
core beliefs imposed upon them at the time of the imbuing.

Finally, the existence of the Hunter Code provides even greater support for
the hypothesis that the imbued are subject to mental tampering by the
Messengers. Indications within several White Wolf products are that Hunter
Code was created by the Messengers and knowledge of it's use was placed
within hunters as an means of encrypted communication among the imbued. The
fact that the Messengers were willing to modify the cognitive faculties of
the imbued in this one thing lends credence to the idea that they may have
been willing to do so with other matters.

Even after the initial act of imbuing, the acts of victimization continue.
Hunters are released into the world with no explanation for their condition
and an almost pathological compulsion to interact with highly dangerous
entities on a regular basis. Provided that their ignorance doesn't prove
immediately lethal, they eventually wind up having to choose between turning
their backs upon the visions of horror which have been inflicted upon them
(resulting in a life racked by the guilt of inaction) and continued pursuit
of the hunt, an act which will rapidly erode their sanity as their rising
conviction scores systematically destroy their minds. Even worse, their
utter ignorance means that the imbued do not even understand the deeper
significance of the choice that they eventually make.

As may be guessed by the previous points, my greatest point of contention
with the Hunter line of products is with the existence and use of the
Messengers. Their involvement reduces the imbued from the status of
everyday heroes to hapless pawns. Also, if the Messengers are indeed (as has
been repeatedly implied) the divine host which warred with Lucifer's armies
in the "Demon: the Fallen" books then their actions are even more
reprehensible. After all, those beings were tasked both to love mankind and
to never reveal their existence to mankind. Provided that those prohibitions
were placed back in force after the fallen angels were finally imprisoned,
the Messengers are definitely violating the second by imbuing humans and are
almost certainly violating the first by the manner in which they callously
metaphysically lobotomize and manipulate the imbued. Aren't these the sort
of presumptuous, overcontrolling, patronizing activities that lead to the
original fall from grace?

Despite these fundamental problems, I believe that "Hunter: the Reckoning"
can be redeemed with only a few modifications.

Get rid of the Messengers. They detract from the theme and provide too
tempting a target for other splats. I keep picturing an archmage of Spirit
stuck in the Umbra deciding to kick their collective arses over what a gang
of imbued did to his star apprentice. A similar scenario involves
confrontation with an outraged Garou sept.

What should the Messengers be replaced with? Perhaps the imbuing is actually
a type of supernatural allergy which humans are starting to develop. The
abilities which Hunters manifest are an immune response to the sudden
increase in exposure. This explanation would remove all of the objections
associated with sentient beings purposefully imbuing people and would change
the overall dynamic in some interesting ways.

Why now? A recent scientific study indicates that children raised around
pets are less likely to develop allergies; suggesting that exposure to low
levels of environmental irritants as a child helps to build a tolerance in
adulthood. Given the increasingly insular nature of various supernatural
factions and the slow thickening of the Shroud/Veil/Gauntlet/etc. this may
well mean that the average modern human is directly exposed to fewer
supernatural influences than a comparable individual at any previous point
in history. Given the metaplot fallout from the various recent Umbral
disasters, the intense upswing in metaphysical energies may well prompt a
supernatural allergy in some ordinary humans.

Basing the game on this new premise alters the explanation for several basic
hunter abilities. A hunter's conviction based defense against supernatural
mind/emotion/body control and his capacity to see through illusions is
actually the capacity to purge oneself of supernatural allergens.

Second Sight and perceptual edges make supernatural beings seem 'wrong'
because the entities are metaphysically irritating to the allergic hunters.

The Patron background may indicate a lingering sensitivity to ambient
supernatural energies.

Hermits and Waywards are not aberrations. Hermits are VERY allergic.
Waywards are driven insane by the severity of their reactions.

Perhaps individual edges, Hunter Code and similar abilities are simply
metaphysical immune responses that are being shared among the imbued through
contact with each other. Thus, the Middle Eastern code may have been
invented by a local hunter and may eventually spread beyond that section of
the world.

Essex wrote:

<snip>

You're right. Hunter is a game about victimization, and how the victims
become the victimizers. It's a game about unfairness of the draft, and
how the existence of a legitimate enemy doesn't justify atrocities
committed by one's own side.

Oddly, all the reasons you dislike the game are the reasons I like it.

Hunter: Fall From Grace deals with this topic in more detail, complete
with the rules for three separate types of five-dot Edges (divine,
demonic, and human), and the observation that yeah, if you choose a
divine one you're pretty much just as screwed as if you chose a demonic
one. The /correct/ side in the war into which the Imbued are thrust is
the side of humanity, against both the most inhuman and unredeemable of
the monsters /and/ those bastard Messengers.