The Digital Front

[Mark_Gedak]

Witch Hunter: The Invisible World is a 270ish page complete roleplaying game that retails for $19.99 at Rpgnow and Drivethrurpg. The witch hunter roleplaying game is swashbuckling horror game that is firmly entrenched in history and folklore of our world. The game is set in the year 1689, and can be played in Western Europe or the New World. The player characters in this game are witch hunters they operate in the shadows, outside the law and in hiding from organized religion. From the darkness they fight against forces of evil that others in society are not equipped to deal with. Witch hunters may be lone operatives or belong to any of a number of orders. In the Witch Hunter campaign I’m currently involved in, my character belongs to the Lightbringer order. This order works from the belief that the world and all its wonder can be explained though science, when the event can’t be rationalized then our rational understanding of the universe needs to be expanded. I think of this organization as operate from the Dana Scully school of thought or that of Icabod Crane’s approach to the world in the start of Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow. There are nine major orders presented in this book, including orders that are the successors to the Knights Templar, Explorers bringing light to the New World, or the a splinter group of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Character creation in Witch Hunter is a choice based process. You have a number of options to choose from or resources to spend at each step of the character generation process. There are no “classes” or “levels” in this game, instead characters are defined by their profession prior to being a witch hunter, the order they belong to and ultimately their actions in the adventure. Each character has skills that are defined by your profession and talents which are left open for you to choose from. Talents seem a lot like feats from d20 based games, providing a benefit to your character in a particular situation. The talent system is also the way in which the player characters can gain access to magic whether it be through animism, hermetic rites or prayer.

Mechanically, the games actions are resolved with a dice pool mechanic. Each skill that you possess has a value associated with it. This value is number of d10 that you roll. Any roll of 7 or more is considered a success and each type of obstacle requires a certain number of successes in order to be bypassed. For example an easy task requires 1 success, but a hard task requires 5 successes. In combat each round, you roll a defence roll and all the successes can be used to negate attacker’s successes. Combat doesn’t not have to be just simple attacks and defences, all the common combat actions present in tactical roleplaying games are included to provide your characters with a rich amount of action choices. The mechanics section also includes rules for chases, hazards, fear and insanity.

At about the 140th page the tome moves from being a player’s guide to more of a manual for GMs. This last half of the book details the world of witch hunter in both an “in character” and fact-based analysis of each region. All regions in this section are immersive in their description and the facts are thoroughly researched. I found it refreshing that non-US sites like New France and New Spain received just as much attention to detail as New Amsterdam. Beyond the section on the world of witch hunter, the GM’s portion of the book covers magical tomes and artifacts, game mastering advice including discussion of a sample mission and almost 70 pages on the forces of darkness and the creatures that will plague your witch hunter and witch hunter team.

From the opening paragraph to the end of the book, Witch Hunter is an immersive roleplaying game book, that never breaks from its intended vision and goal. I think Witch Hunter could be the best horror roleplaying game in a single book that I’ve seen in a long time. At $19.99, it is a steal for the quality and quantity of product provided. However, and I know how opposite this is for me, if you can I would pick it up in print. A manual of this size is just too difficult to comfortably using on a computer. If you are interested in horror gaming in a bygone era you need to check out Witch Hunter: The Invisible World by Paradigm Concepts.