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Originally Posted by Inamoena Tempora
Since I've been burned in the past with narrative games, a few questions beforehanded...
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Sorry about the vagueness, Inamoena. This is my first review, and I'm still getting the hang of things.
Hopefully, Christian's response answered most of your questions, but I'll add a couple of clarifications from my point of view.
Hunting a beast (which is just a generic term for a whole host of magical monsters that take a wide variety of forms), while the titular activity of the game, isn't the only thing that adventures will center around; in fact, I would guess that most games would feature at least as many adventures without as beast hunt as those with one. The game's setting, while not overly detailed, provides seeds for a variety of adventures, just like any other game.
Beast hunts themselves, when they do occur, are usually (but not always) physical conflicts, but even in an adventure that contains a beast hunt, fighting the beast is not the only conflict you will get into.
For example, say you're hunting a swamp-dwelling creature, but you live in the plains. Part of the adventure will be getting from your home to where the beast lives, which might involve figuring out how to sneak through a fortress that guards the pass you need to get through. Once you arrive in the swamp, you discover that another Beast Hunter has just arrived as well, and intends to hunt the same beast, so the two of you must engage in a social conflict (or maybe a physical one...) to resolve who will continue the hunt. Then you must track the beast through the swamp using your wits, so that you can actually fight with it in the final climactic battle.
I won't lie and say that Beast Hunters doesn't have a narrative focus, because it does. Challengers and Hunters are encouraged to only start rolling dice when the negotiations between them break down or aren't interesting anymore. However, if you were so inclined, it would be very easy to go to dice on every single conflict that occurs, and the conflict resolution system, while not nearly as detailed as, say, Exalted or D&D, is still tactical enough to give you a lot of milage.