[MH] "Young Hunter" Lens for Buffy-Inspired Campaign

[RaRaRasputin]

I'm hoping to run a Monster Hunters campaign in the near future that draws inspiration from Buffy The Vampire Slayer and The Dresden Files, with a secondary focus on social dynamics in between all the "hunting down ugly things and kicking their butts".

PCs who are high school students will need to hold their own alongside characters in their 20s, 30s, or 450s.

To that end, I've written up a couple of 0-point lenses, along with a new skill, a new perk, a new disadvantage, and a small expansion of the Patron rules. The Basic Set suggests that children should take their parents as a 30-point Patron. In Monster Hunters, 30 points worth of Patron gets you the entire Watcher's Council or The Initiative, so spending the same amount on Joyce Summers, local art gallery proprietor, seems absurd. I reduced "I live with my parents" to a 1-point Claim to Hospitality, and reserved Patron for exceptional parents. I'd appreciate the community's input.


As per B20, this setting treats children as being essentially just small adults. Ignore the detailed rules for aging, build your character as normal, and then apply one of the following lenses to adjust for their age:

Young Hunter Lens (+0 points)

You are 13 to 17 years old, and are most likely enrolled as a student in a local high school. As if the responsibility of saving the world and keeping your community safe wasn't enough, you also have to worry about your GPA and about finding a date to the Homecoming dance!

Advantages: Claim to Hospitality (Parents) [1]
Add the following to the advantages offered by your template: Destiny +1 to +4 [5/level]; High Manual Dexterity [5 to 10]; Intuition [15]; Perfect Balance [15]; Pitiable [5]; Rapid Healing [5]. You may use extra points to upgrade your Claim to Hospitality to Claim to Hospitality (Extended Family) [2], or to Patron (Parents) [5 or 10].
Disadvantages: Social Stigma (Minor) [-5].
Add the following to the disadvantages offered by your template: Reduced ST 1 or 2 [-10/level]; Curious [-5*]; Impulsiveness [-10*]; Odious Personal Habit (sullen or sarcastic demeanor) [-5]; Overconfidence [-5*] or Low Self Image [-10]; Pacifism [Varies]; Stubborn [-5]; Wealth [Varies].
Primary Skill: Professional Skill (High School) IQ/A, IQ [2].
Background Skills: Choose two skills from Area Knowledge (Choose One), Computer Operation, Games (Choose One), Hobby Skill (Choose One), or Savoir-Faire (High School); all IQ/E, IQ [1]; Musical Instrument (Choose One), IQ/H, IQ-2, [1]; Bicycling, DX/E, DX [1]; Combat Sport (Choose One), Sports (Choose One) or Driving (Choose One), all DX/A, DX-1, [1]; Survival (Choose One), Per/A, Per-1, [1]; or choose any skill covered by Professional Skill (High School). Add any skills not chosen from this list to the Background Skills offered by your occupational template.

Very Young Hunter Lens (+0 points)

You are 13 years old or younger, and are most likely a student in elementary or middle school. In a sensible world, someone your age would be enjoying childhood, not hunting vampires late at night. But sometimes, a kid's got to do what a kid's got to do.

Attributes: ST -2 [-20]
Secondary Characteristics: HP -2 [0]; SM -1 [0]
Advantages: Claim to Hospitality (Parents) [1]. Spend 25 points on Destiny +1 to +4 [5/level]; High Manual Dexterity [5 to 10]; Intuition [15]; Perfect Balance [15]; Pitiable [5]; or Rapid Healing [5]; or to upgrade your Claim to Hospitality to Claim to Hospitality (Extended Family) [2], or to Patron (Parents) [5 or 10]. Add any remaining advantages to those offered by your template.
With the GM's permission, you may instead spend any or all of these points on Potential Advantages (see B33).
Disadvantages: Social Stigma (Child) [-10].
Add the following to the disadvantages offered by your template: Curious [-5*]; Impulsiveness [-10*]; Odious Personal Habit (childlike lack of social grace) [-5]; Overconfidence [-5*] or Low Self Image [-10]; Pacifism [Varies]; Stubborn [-5]; Wealth [Varies]; or up to two additional levels of Reduced ST [-10/level].
Skills: As per the Young Hunter lens.

New Advantage:

Patron (Parents) [5 or 10]

By default, your Claim to Hospitality trait assumes that your parents provide you with room, board, and occasionally transportation, but otherwise don't contribute significantly to your Monster Hunting career. Likewise, they expect you to occasionally do chores, and hope that you get good grades, but are not particularly overbearing or protective.
However, some young Hunters may have parents who are willing to actively aid them in their vocation. Maybe your mother is a trauma surgeon, who patches up you and your friends and doesn't ask too many questions. Maybe your father is a sergeant in the local police department, who's willing to pass information about the really strange cases on to you. Or maybe both your parents were slaying demons long before you were ever born, and they taught you everything you know. If this is the case for your character, you can buy the Patron advantage reflecting this.
This advantage includes a Claim to Hospitality – you don't need to purchase it separately, and you don't need to worry about a reaction roll for the basic “room and board” services. The individual you select as your Patron (Parent) does not have to be your literal parent, either biologically or legally- any mentor figure who you regard as being like a parent, and who cares for you as though you were their child, can qualify. If both your parents have a similar career, the same advantage can cover them both, you don't need to buy it twice.
Choose one of the options below:

Well-Meaning Parent [5]
Your parent is understanding, at least semi-competent, and interested in helping you. They're not initially clued in on the whole “monsters are real” thing, but if and when they do find out, they'll take the news surprisingly well.
When you purchase this advantage, choose one broad, mundane area of competence, like “medicine” or “finance”. Your parent provides the equivalent of a Contact (Usually Reliable) with that area of specialty and an effective skill of 15. Requests For Aid (see MH2, p26) that are covered by this category are made at no penalty, as are generic favours one might ask of any parent. Any others requests are made with an Appropriateness Penalty of at least -3.

(Note: This price is based on a house rule. Contacts and Contact Groups, as presented in B44, seemed overpriced. Contacts now get to use a wildcard skill at the base price)

Powerful Parent [10]
Your parent is a veteran hunter, an experienced mage, a high-ranking paramilitary official, a mad scientist, a renowned occult scholar, or an exemplar of some other career that's directly relevant to hunting monsters. Their point value is at least 150% of your own, and possibly significantly higher.
This is the same patron cost as you would pay for an entire organization with Light Influence and a Modest Budget – and, in fact, they function as one for the purpose of Budgeting (MH1 p53) and Requests for Aid (MH2 p26). The reduced scope of your Patron is counterbalanced by the fact that they consider your well being to be a very high priority, and they're willing to dedicate a larger portion of their resources to helping you. Unlike such an organization, they do not pay you a salary, although they may pay you an allowance.

If you and your parent are both members of the same organization, you may buy Patron (Parents) as an alternate ability to Patron (Organization), for 2 points. If you do this, you can make separate requests for aid, but do not get separate budgets – take only the higher sum of money, regardless of where it's coming from. Note that you cannot claim points from negative Wealth if you have a Patron that grants you equipment.

New Disadvantage:

Social Stigma (Child) [-10]
This is a more severe version of Social Stigma (Minor), for campaigns in which the distinction between a 12 year old PC and a 16 year old PC would be relevant.
As an even younger character, you can look forward to significantly greater restrictions on your freedom – expect shopkeepers to refuse you service, and police officers to ask where your parents are. Forget driving a car or buying booze- the government doesn't even trust you to sign up for an email account without your parents' permission! Not that that has ever stopped you from clicking the “Yes, I'm 18” button, of course.
Characters with this disadvantage are usually physically much smaller than adults (ie: SM -1 for human children). While a teenager might be able to pass for an adult with some makeup and a fake ID, you stand basically no chance. Even wearing a trench coat and sitting on a friend's shoulders, you would take a significant penalty to Disguise (see B187).
You suffer -4 on reaction rolls when trying to convince a grown-up to treat you like an equal, and -2 on reaction rolls from unsympathetic teenagers.
As you leave puberty behind and are acknowledged to be a young adult, you must buy off this disadvantage and replace it with Social Stigma (Minor).


[Post 1/2]

[RaRaRasputin]

New Skill:


Professional Skill (High School)
IQ/A
Defaults: IQ-5, Research-3.

This is the skill of doing well in school. It represents a broad array of different subjects. Someone with a high level of this skill may not necessarily have a deep and nuanced understanding of any of those subjects, but they definitely have the sort of study habits that can help one get good grades.
This skill can substitute for Mathematics (Applied), Literature, Poetry, Linguistics, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Geography, History, and a host of other skills - but only for the purpose of a subject that could reasonably be covered in a regular High School. It will let you remember the date of the Battle of Hastings or the fact that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, solve quadratic equations, present a Science Fair project, or identify metaphors in Romeo and Juliet. If you're planning on doing something significantly more complex that that, you should probably learn the appropriate skills for real. If you're not, it's a handy “catch-all” skill.
Use the higher of this skill and Research when researching for scholastic purposes, the higher of this skill and Writing when writing a school report, and the higher of this skill and Teaching when tutoring another student. At the GM's discretion, this may act as a complimentary skill to Research, Writing, or Teaching under other circumstances. If using the Intensive Training rules from Social Engineering: Back to School, you may substitute an HT-based or Will-based roll against this skill, as appropriate.
You can always roll against this skill when writing any sort of standardized test.

Special: Research and Professional Skill (High School) default to each other at -3.
None of the other listed skills can be bought up from an improved default. However, with the GM's permission, a player trying to use one of above skills may roll at default from Professional Skill (High School) at anything from -2 to -10, depending on how far outside the scope of a typical classroom the task is. Players who make a habit of doing this should be encouraged to invest points in the relevant skills, or to purchase an aspected form of Wild Talent.

(Note: I debated whether this would make more sense as a Professional Skill or as an Expert Skill. I eventually went with Professional Skill because A - the characters will likely just treat "student" as a day job, and B - the math worked out neater with this skill being IQ/A than if it were IQ/H. A slightly messier alternative would be to offer a custom Talent, Higher Purpose, or just multiple levels of the Dabbler perk.)


New Perks:

Emancipated Minor
Prerequisites: Social Stigma (Minor)
You may be an orphan, a child of unfit parents, or just a runaway. Whatever your circumstances, you have obtained a Writ of Emancipation from the appropriate court. This means that you no longer need a legal guardian, and allows you to be treated as a legal adult for many purposes, such as employment, entering into contracts, consenting to medical treatments, owning property, or even marriage. Depending on your jurisdiction, other privileges (such as voting or purchasing alcohol) may still have to wait until you reach the appropriate age.
This does not eliminate the -2 reaction penalty from adults, but it might give you the opportunity to convince them to take you seriously.
When you reach legal age and buy off Social Stigma (Minor), you must also sell off this perk.

[Post 2/2]

[evileeyore]

Very nice! I'd definitely yoink all this if I were to run a Buffy-style MH game.

[ericthered]

The young hunter lens comes to +1 point, not +0 points, by my count.

patron (parents) [1]
Professional Skill (high school) [2]
Three skills from: [1] *3
Social Stigma (minor) [-5]

Very young hunter has more in the list, but includes most of the above and also comes in at +1.

I like the claim to hospitality (extended family). Though depending on the size of your extended family it may still be cheap.

You should probably specify some limits on the Patron (Parent) [10], or you may end up with them coming along to every major fight. I suppose that's what frequency of appearance is for.

[RaRaRasputin]

Originally Posted by ericthered

The young hunter lens comes to +1 point, not +0 points, by my count.

That was an arithmetic error on my part, and is remedied by giving two background skills instead of three.

You should probably specify some limits on the Patron (Parent) [10], or you may end up with them coming along to every major fight. I suppose that's what frequency of appearance is for.

In my campaign primer, this is where I would insert my Patrons are not Minions sidebar, which includes the out-of-game explanation for why your badass grandpa doesn't show up to every fight, and suggests a few possible in-game explanations. I omitted it from this post because I assumed it to be common knowledge around here.

Also, the MH Patron rules appear to have folded Frequency of Appearance rolls in with Reaction rolls to make a single Request roll. Do you know of anywhere (A pyramid article? PK's blog?) that unpacks the math behind this decision, so I can sanity-check it against my own?

ETA: I should probably include options for taking your family as Dependants or even as Enemy (Watcher), if you want them to be more of a liability than an asset. "My little sister's in trouble? Must be Tuesday."

[Christopher R. Rice]

This is pretty awesome. Any reason why you didn't decide to submit it to Pyramid?

[Flyndaran]

Very Young Hunter templates could make for a dark Powerpuff Girls reboot.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

This is pretty awesome. Any reason why you didn't decide to submit it to Pyramid?

Yeah, there's even an appropriate theme on the Wishlist.

[RaRaRasputin]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

This is pretty awesome. Any reason why you didn't decide to submit it to Pyramid?

Honestly? Because I have no idea how to go about doing that, and it genuinely did not occur to me as a real option.

I remember thinking that it's the sort of content I would have have liked to see in a Pyramid article if I didn't write it myself - but what you see here isn't a finished product, just a rough draft that I wanted some input on. Heck, the first posted version of the main lens contained a basic arithmetic error. The final document I hand out to my players is, at the very least, going to contain a bunch of extra perks (some related to being teenagers, other just for generic Monster-fighting) and a more detailed write-up of Savoir-Faire (High School).

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by RaRaRasputin

Honestly? Because I have no idea how to go about doing that, and it genuinely did not occur to me as a real option.

I remember thinking that it's the sort of content I would have have liked to see in a Pyramid article if I didn't write it myself - but what you see here isn't a finished product, just a rough draft that I wanted some input on. Heck, the first posted version of the main lens contained a basic arithmetic error. The final document I hand out to my players is, at the very least, going to contain a bunch of extra perks (some related to being teenagers, other just for generic Monster-fighting) and a more detailed write-up of Savoir-Faire (High School).

You should consider it - and then expand it more.