[RPG]: Beast Hunters, reviewed by amnesiack (5/4)

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12876.phtml

Lukas Myhan's Summary:

<i>Beast Hunters</i> is an excellent roleplaying game for two players in a world of magical beasts and waring nations.

Go to the full review for more information.

[C.W.Richeson]

Great review, Lukas! Beast Hunters sounds like an excellent choice for two people who want to play something lighter that still involves strategy. How long do you think an average session would take? I had been thinking of using this game to fill in an hour here and there around existing game sessions, but I don't know if that would work.

[iago]

You should give Ryan Macklin's <i>Master Plan</i> podcast a listen; he interviews Christian on a recent episode and they actually run through a quick conflict as an example for the rules. Might give you a good feel for the game in action.

http://masterplan.libsyn.com/

Thanks for the review, by the way! I always appreciate it when someone takes notice of the layout I've done, and I'm particularly proud of my work on Beast Hunters.

[amnesiack]

Originally Posted by C.W.Richeson

Great review, Lukas!

Thanks! That means a lot considering your track record.

Beast Hunters sounds like an excellent choice for two people who want to play something lighter that still involves strategy. How long do you think an average session would take? I had been thinking of using this game to fill in an hour here and there around existing game sessions, but I don't know if that would work.

One of the neat things about the adversity pool mechanic is that it makes the game visibly and easily scalable from session to session in terms of length and difficulty. The Hunter chooses both the total number of points and the maximum that can be spent on one conflict. So, if you wanted a very short session, setting the pool at a relatively low number, but setting the max expenditure relatively high would mean that you could have a quick game with just 1-3 conflicts of moderate to high difficulty.

Sessions with actual beast hunts will tend to be a bit longer, both because they dictate the minimum adversity pool and because they have a built-in endgame for the session that only comes into play after all the points have been expended.

Does that help?

[amnesiack]

Originally Posted by iago

You should give Ryan Macklin's <i>Master Plan</i> podcast a listen; he interviews Christian on a recent episode and they actually run through a quick conflict as an example for the rules. Might give you a good feel for the game in action.

Thanks for the review, by the way! I always appreciate it when someone takes notice of the layout I've done, and I'm particularly proud of my work on Beast Hunters.

Thanks, Fred. I have heard the interview, and it gave me a little taste of what the game might feel like. I actually have a friend reading the book right now as well, and we intend to run through a few sessions soon. It's pretty amazing how much easier needing only one other person to play the game makes actually getting to play it!

People who do great work deserve recognition, and you definitely knocked it out of the park on the BH layout, so you definitely should be proud.

[C.W.Richeson]

Originally Posted by amnesiack

Does that help?

Yep, thanks! I like that the hunt is mechanically customizable for duration like that.

[xenopulse]

Thanks for the review!

I'll have to see about beast creation guidelines. That shouldn't be that hard to put together as a little article or downloadable file.

The preorder is over now, but the electronic version can be purchased from Lulu:

http://www.lulu.com/content/767785

We'll make the printed version of the game available via Lulu on <s>Wednesday</s>Tuesday (April 3). It will also be available via IPR shortly thereafter.

Let me know if you have any other questions

[Inamoena Tempora]

Since I've been burned in the past with narrative games, a few questions beforehanded...

1) How are weapons and armor (or even more basic: tools) treated in a conflict? Are they relevant, do they confer a bonus or an advantage, or are they merely colour?

2) I know that the setting is probably only loosely defined, but what do we have here? A neolithic setting, except for the metal weapons? A culture of noble-savage type primitives amidst a more traditional "sword&sorcery" type world? Something else entirely?

3) What is the Beast? A mythical creature of great power, or merely a name for the main bad guy of the adventure? The review mentions a social combat system, which seems...odd, considering that the basic premise is that a power-hungry hunter intends to slay an unpleasant creature and drain it of it's blood in order to increase his own prowess. Talking the creature to death or embarrassing it to the point of no return somehow lacks a bit of ooomph in my opinion, not to mention that it feels strange. "So, Grendel, tell me about your mother..."

4) How much variance can be put in the basic way of playing? From the previews and the review it looks like it's seems it's basically just "find the beast, best the problems that might occur on the way, hack the beast to pieces in an epic showdown and get a spiffy power-up tatoo as a reminder". Which sounds like fun for about 3 or 4 games. But somehow seems to lack a long-term incentive of playing it again.

I don't want to sound overtly critical. Actually, I dig the idea behind the game. (And there was this PS2 game with a similar premise of killing huge, monstrous beasts and using parts of them to create powerful weapons and armour...I liked that idea. And this seems similar from the concept). Creating a game for 2 ist a marvellous idea, since it gets harder each year to gather the 4-5 people required for a "regular" rpg. Something quick for two sounds like a great idea.
But as I said, I've been burnt in the past, and games that looked like they could provide epic struggles governed by clever dice mechanics turned out to be the dice-based equivalent of interpretative dance.

Which reminds me, the basic die roll mechanisms used in the game were omitted from the review. They can't be grasped from the preview, either. Would anybody care to enlighten us on how the system actually works?

I'd love to love this game. But the reviews and previews were so terribly vague to this point...

I.T.

[xenopulse]

Hi I.T.,

Let me see if I can answer your questions to your satisfaction.

1) There are two ways in which weapons and other tools can work in a conflict: officially, as resources that you purchased (which are offensive to give more damage or defensive to reduce opponents' damage against you), or unofficially when you use them in the description of your action to gain a higher advantage point offer from the Challenger (see summary of dice rules below). To make it simpler: if you've paid points for them, they definitely matter; if they're Color, they can still matter if you use them right.

2) The Chel'qhuri don't fit the noble savage cliche. They are vicious and brutal, sure, but they attack merchant convoys, pillage softling villages, and so on--not much nobility there. The whole Berengad peninsula has several distinct regions, all of which were united under a foreign empire until recently. The various magical beasts are most of the magic you will encounter; the manipulable streams of magic have been exhausted in a cataclysmic battle. If you want to categorize it, low fantasy would be it.

3) There are 20 different magical beasts listed in the game. Each one confers a different power when you slay it and use its blood as ink for a ritual tattoo. Most of them are physical encounters, but that doesn't mean you can't have social or mental conflicts in the course of the hunt for that particular beast. Sometimes you'll have a social conflict with a warring tribe over whether they'll let you pass peacefully, or a mental conflict testing your resilience and drive.

4) You don't have to hunt beasts; you can make an adventure about anything you think fits with the setting. The same rules apply, just that what's at stake, instead of "do I track down the beast" is "do I make peace between these two tribes" or "do I rescue my tribemate from the enemy" or whatever. The choice of whether to make this personal or epic here really lies with you and your fellow GMs.

Here's a basic overview of how the dice system works. It's really pretty straightforward.

Players take turns. You take one action on your turn. You can activate a trait, make an offensive maneuver (to gain advantage points), make a defensive maneuver (to deny the other side advantage points), deny a resource (frex, disarm your opponent), recover a resource, achieve secondary goals, or trade advantage points for damage dice against your opponent. Inflicting enough damage to take out the other side wins you the conflict.

For offensive maneuvers, you describe your action, including how you use your traits and resources, make use of the environment, do little tricks, and whatnot. The Challenger evaluates the action and offers you a certain amount of advantage points. You can either take them and thereby succeed, or you can roll 2D10 plus bonuses from your active offensive traits against the opponent's 2D10 plus defensive traits. It's risky, of course, as it might net you nothing, or you might gain more than what you were offered.

Damage levels work much like they do in FATE.

Does that make sense so far?

- Christian

[amnesiack]

Originally Posted by Inamoena Tempora

Since I've been burned in the past with narrative games, a few questions beforehanded...

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.