How to Run:Hunter

Another one from the original thread, posted by Pseudoephedrine.

How to run Hunter: the Reckoning

Part One: It's a disempowerment fantasy

You and your players should be able to wrap your heads around the idea that Hunter the Reckoning is a disempowerment fantasy. It's not about playing people who are greater than one's self in a fantasy world, but rather about playing people who are exactly like yourselves, in a world that's far larger and scarier than our own.

Part Two: Metaphors

An absolutely critical step to getting the most out of a Hunter the Reckoning game is to root the scariness in the world around the PCs, and then use that contextualisation transform the monsters into metaphors. A vampire or werewolf should never just be a vampire or werewolf, running around preying on people without any reason. It's important to the feel of the game that the creatures live and act in the same world as the PCs, and that they take on metaphorical roles as embodiments of problems and struggles (social, moral, religious, whatever) that the PCs would confront in their ordinary lives.

Vampires prey on people for self-gain - make them the embodiment of parasitic social structures, as politicians, businessmen, controllers of society. Ghouls collaborate with them - they represent the morally blind who co-operate with evil so as to prosper. They are the supernatural equivalent of the police and military. Werewolves represent marginalised groups driven to radicalism and violence. Mages are all technocrats (small-t), the skilled elite who wish to dominate and steer society, against whom the common man is helpless.

Part Three: Consequences

Hunter is a game where the consequences of one's actions matter. PCs should be forced to make choices that are important, choices where there is not necessarily a right answer, and choices where they must live with the consequences even when those are not roses and sunshine. It may be a choice between losing one's family or stopping a monster from killing hundreds of people. It might be losing one's friends, or sacrificing one's self to stop a monster. It might be killing a monster you think is evil, even though you can't be sure. Making PCs actions matter, making consequences, well, consequential, allows you to disempower them within the game's mechanics - keeping them away from assault weapons, barring them from attaing level 5 edges and the like - while still making them feel as if their characters are able to do worthwhile and valuable things.