Game Rules

Custom Rules

Audience

The Audience stat will represent an abstracted representation of viewership and ratings for the show. Your group will start off with 1 Audience due to the marketing done by the network airing the show. Audience score should only be between -1 and 3, inclusively.

Check the Ratings

At the end of a Mystery, roll +Audience to determine how the most recent episode faired in the ratings and viewership. On a 10+, increase the Audience by 1 and each Hunter gains 2 Luck. On a 7-9, each Hunter gains 1 Luck and the network may request something to happen in the next episode. On a failure Lose 1 rating.

Talking Head

Once per Mystery, a character can choose to do a talking head in response to a failure to make it a partial success.

Deal with Network

You can request certain number of things to be included in the budget depending on your Audience score.

Negotiate Contract

When your Audience is less than 0, your contract is in the hot seat for cancellation. Provide a reason for why the current Audience shouldn't matter and roll +Sharp. On a 10+, take a +2 Forward on the next Check the Ratings move because the network is trying a new marketing approach. On a 7-9, take a +1 Forward on the next Check the Ratings move and the network may request some kind of change to the show. On a failure, the network becomes more likely to cancel the show.

Rules

Hunter Agenda

When you’re playing your Hunter

• Act like you’re the hero in this story (because you are)
• Make your own destiny
• Find the damn monsters and stop them
• Play your hunter like they’re a real person

Think like your hunter would think. Do what your hunter would do. Remember that you’re a badass: extremely dangerous, and good at what you do.

When you get into a fight, you might take a lot of harm, but hunters are lucky and heal quickly. Use Luck to avoid harm if you need to. Alternatively, you can hold on until the end of the fight and then take a break to rest up and heal.

You need to work out what’s behind each situation. Then work out how to find it and what its weaknesses are. Then kill it.

Rolls

If something says to roll +Rating, you’ll roll the 2d6 and add that rating to the result. For example, +Cool would be 2d6+Cool.

The move description will say what the different results mean. Usually, 7 or higher is a partial success, and 10 or higher is a full success, which is really good. A result of 6 or lower is a miss, which means the Keeper will have an opportunity to screw your hunter over.

Sometimes, you’ll also see something say “Forward,” “Ongoing,” or “Hold”.

• When something gives you a forward, you apply that bonus on the very next roll.
• When something gives you an ongoing, you apply that bonus on every roll until the effect no longer applies.
• When something gives you a hold, it’ll come with a certain number of points you can spend. The Move that gives the Hold will usually say how those points can be spent.

Luck

Every hunter has a certain amount of Luck they can call on in emergencies. When you mark off a point of Luck, you can choose one of the following lucky breaks:

- Decrease a wound you just suffered to 0-harm.
- After you roll, retroactively change the result to a 12.

Your playbook has a Luck counter that keeps track of how much is left. You only get a limited supply. Make it count.

When you have marked off all your Luck, the Keeper is allowed to hit you with more bad stuff. Fate will be looking for some payback. If your playbook includes fate-related stuff (such as the Chosen’s fate or the Spooky’s dark side), running out of Luck means all that bad stuff is going to start happening.

Experience & Improvements

You get an experience point whenever your roll totals six or less, or when a move tells you to. Mark your next experience box.

Whenever you mark the fifth experience box on your playbook, you "level up". Erase all five marks and choose an improvement from the list in your playbook. Mark the improvements off as you take them: each can only be selected once.

Then you start collecting experience marks again, until you "level up" again when you get another five experience points.

When you have leveled up five times, you can start choosing from the advanced improvements list as well.

Weapon Tags

• 1-harm, 2-harm, 3-harm, etc: This is how much harm the attack inflicts.
• area: Can hit multiple foes. You may divide the harm you inflict among multiple targets.
• balanced: Easy to wield and keep your grip on.
• barrier: Does harm to anything that passes through. Counts as armour against any attacks that pass through it.
• close: Effective at fairly close quarters—outside arms’ reach, but not too far.
• far: Effective at long range.
• fire: Sets things on fire.
• forceful: Pushes things around, allowing you to “force them where you want them” in addition to normal attack effects.
• hand: Effective within arms’ reach.
• life-drain: Transfers life energy: the wielder is healed for as many points of harm as were inflicted. E.g. if you inflict 2-harm, then you heal 2-harm from your injuries.
• heavy: This weapon is heavy and difficult to wield.
• holy: This will be more effective against monsters with a weakness to holy items.
• ignore-armour: Ignores protective armour. Armour has no effect on this harm. If armour has the magic tag, then the attack needs both ignore-armour and magic to bypass the armour.
• innocuous: Doesn’t draw suspicion.
• intimate: Effective at the closest of quarters—within the embrace of your foe.
• loud: Loud enough that it draws attention.
• magic: Enchanted, and so can affect certain creatures and armours that are proof against normal weapons.
• many: These weapons are small enough you can carry a large number of them.
• [a material]: This weapon is made from the named material, and is thus useful against monsters with that weakness.
• messy: Spreads a lot of blood and gore around.
• quick: Fast to prepare and attack with, giving you a better chance of going first.
• reload: This weapon has limited ammunition, and may run out and need to be reloaded.
• restraining: A successful attack entangles or grabs the victim.
• slow: This weapon is slow to prepare and attack with.
• small: This weapon is tiny and easy to conceal.
• unreliable: This weapon needs regular cleaning and maintenance, otherwise it just isn’t gonna work.
• useful: This weapon has other uses aside from violence.
• valuable: This weapon is antique, or made of valuable materials.
• volatile: This weapon is dangerous and unstable.