Adapting Collaborative Gaming to Monster Hunters

The Collaborative Gaming System is obviously made for fantasy, and skews that direction. But how hard would it be to run it with a different genre? Like say, Monster Hunters. I decided to go ahead and do that, and tell you guys about the modifications I had to make. The modifications are fairly large, but they are also fairly simple.

• Adjust Monster Type Table
• Treasure and Fame become saved lives and monster slaying
• All Adventures start off as investigation, with starting clue
• Solo 6 for What, Where, When, Who, and Why being obvious
• How far is changed to 'how fast is the investigation take place'
• 'Dungeons' are changed to 'Lairs' and 'Crime Scenes' (info areas)
• Connect Clues with Lore Points
• Peril and Monster Hunters Balance

Monster Type Table

One of the big obstacles is that the monster table given isn't appropriate. Of course, Monster Hunters has a fairly standard list of foes. These foes are different for each GM and setting: Fae may or may not be a big foe. You may or may not want aliens in your game. You may or may not want to come up with a mutant animal on the spot when asked to. Psi may dominate your game or not be included at all. You may have a full demi-human cast like Monster Hunters International or none at all. That said, as long as you know what you want, building the table is easy.

This is my own version:

	1	2	3	4	5
	Undead	Spirit	Living	Humans	Aliens
1	Vampires	Rouge Angels	Lycanthrope	Rouge Crusader	Greys
2	Vampires	In Betweener	Lycanthrope	Cultists	Nordics
3	Ghost	Demons	Lycanthrope	Rouge Psi	Alien Monster
4	Mummy	Demons	Mutant Animal	Rouge Witch	Reptoids
5	Zombie (Curse)	Fae	Legendary Creature	Rouge Experiment	Stalkers
6	Zombie (biological)	Fae	Custom Curse	Campaign Emphasis	Campaign Emphasis

On 6: Campaign Emphasis
Lycanthrope: 1-2: wolf, 3: eagle, 4: bear, 5: tiger, 6: random animal
Alien Monster: 1:Insectiods, 2: Phasites, 3: Devourers, 4: Disease, 5: Create New, 6: Campaign emphasis
Legendary Creature: Use chupacabra if you need stats premade. Or get creative and pick yetis, lake monsters, a dragon, or your local legend
Custom Curse: This is a curse on a creature or person.  It should be considered a 'living' creature.
   
The four campaign emphasis options should be picked at the start of the campaign: they show what is emphasized in this campaign. It doesn't have to be a new category, but it doesn't have to be an old category either. An entire category of 'curses' or 'demihumans' could be added. Rouge humans could be another Witch or Psi, but it could be Men in Black or a mad scientist. At this stage also prune what you don't want, and replace it with options you want to emphasize. Perhaps all psi is replaced with magic, or perhaps you don't want cultists.

Further, You should always roll on this table when picking a villain -- but don't roll on the table until you have clues that tell you what the monster is, or what its 'appears' to be. This table may very well come up more than once for a single hunt!

Treasure and Fame: Lives and Slaying

Monster Hunters don't fight for money (ok, some do, but they're exceptions) and they despise fame: it endangers the secret. They want to save people and to kill monsters. So on the rewards table replace 'rates' with 'lives saved' and Social points with 'Monster Killing': instead of Standard Rates with Fame and Glory you have a moderate number of lives at stake with the opportunity to kill an exceptional number of monsters.

Starting Adventures, or should I say Hunts

On finding Adventure, Monster hunters generally have trouble come to them rather than the other way around. The initial clue, the inciting incident, isn't just scene dressing -- its an important part of the investigation.

1:You notice a odd behavior or a monster
2:Someone is dead
3:a monster attacks a player
4:Research yields behavioral clues
5:Someone else notices an odd behavior and tells you
6:Mystical Means

Don't roll up the adventure type until you know what its going to be: the majority of monster hunter adventures start with investigation. You have five things to figure out: What, Where, When, Who, and Why. At the start of an investigation, roll the solo 6 for each, asking 'is this obvious?' This doesn't mean the answer is correct, just that it appears this way. Investigation is required to confirm each, at which point, you roll the solo 6 again to see if the fact was true...

The adventure type table is also a little skewed towards Fantasy activities and away from monster hunting ones. In particular, compete and explore tend to be rolled a lot more than your typical monster hunters would want, and we want more emphasis on investigate. Change compete and explore rolls of 5 or 16 into investigate rolls (about half of compete or explore quests become investigate adventures).

Distance and Time

The distance category is technically measured in 'Units of Time to location', but this can be tweaked to represent how easy the investigation is to follow: and as a consequence how long each step of the investigation can take. Actual distance may be involved as well, but the most important measure is the dominant unit of time.

Its also probably a good idea to increase the sense of urgency at the lowest level: Change "No Particular Rush" to "People die, but at a category one slower than expected, and it won't go away with until dealt with".

Dungeons and Crime Scenes

Monster Hunters don't really do journeys. You have special skills that let you find the danger, you don't encounter it just wandering around. The way they do dungeons is also different, but surprisingly similar. Most Dungeons are a single area: Usually a crime scene or a monster lair. Roll for the entrance if there is a chance of hostiles. Be creative about the word 'guarded': it could be a lock, could be a ward, could a security alarm. Or actual guards. When rolling for opportunities roll on the 'best' category of 'safe', 'info' or 'lair'. When rolling for mishaps, choose the least dangerous option that makes sense -- monster hunters don't do a lot of combat.

Dealing with Clues and Lore Points

Lore points are of especial interest: They are good for a +1 clue that you wouldn't have expected at the scene. Bad guys make mistakes! Roll on the table for what kind of tip was left.

1: What 2: Where 3: When 4: Who 5: Why 6: Player choice or other useful info

If the category has already been solved, treat it as a 6, and choose what kind of a clue you need.

When selecting clues, come up with an 'apparent' adventure. Why clues can be inspired by adventure types. What clues use monster types. Who clues use random pieces of NPC. When Clues use the 'What's the rush Table'. These are mined for little bits and pieces, though players should feel free to use the solo6 to confirm or disprove theories before rolling for completely new data.

Peril and Balance

The peril system isn't quite as applicable for Monster Hunters -- and sometimes you'll get responses like 2N rouge angels -- what do you do then? Well, you do your best. Let peril make things harder or easier without changing the stats

In Summary

I hope you enjoy this. In some ways, its can aid in GMing as well as in solo or collaborative play. I goofed around and quickly generated a couple of fairly interesting monster hunters plots. The system is really good, and as you can see, not really that hard to adapt to monster hunters. Happy hunting!