Good evening, ladies and gentleman. It's been a good long while since we've touched on RPG Antagonists, and today we're going to be looking at a good creepy game, Hunter: The Vigil. Now, I'm a huge fan of H:tV, and it's one of the nWoD games that I genuinely think surpasses its oWoD counterpart. New Hunter focuses a lot less on the superpowers and the creeds, and focuses a lot more on the average, normal people that are in the World of Darkness, and how they manage to survive against nasty boogiemen like vampires and werewolves. So, with that in mind, let's take a look at one of the most insidious of their antagonists, Slashers.
Slashers are one of the worst antagonists a hunter can fight, because in many ways, they represent something that all hunters can become. Hunters who become a bit too axe-crazy could start ending up with the urge to take the axes to human faces as well. Slashers represent this very human menace, and it's a mistake to think of them entirely as masked figures dragging an oversized knife around. They can be charming, some of them supernaturally so. They can also be extremely clever and dangerous, creating exceedingly brilliant death-traps and luring their prey into them. They can become Bloody Mary-esque urban legends, capable of being summoned by those with the knowledge and the stupidity. The point is, in the World of Darkness, if you want to do something enough that you're willing to sacrifice your humanity for it, chances are, you're going to become something not quite human. Slashers aren't mere psychopaths, though they often start out as them. Slashers are people who are obsessed with the idea of murder, to the total exclusion of anything else, even cognitively relating to other people. They becomes avatars of different archetypes of serial killers, almost living embodiments of murder, thinly disguised within a human skin, and that's what makes them some of the cleverest and most insidious villains in any RPG. Slashers aren't biologically or magically detectable, just like real life sociopaths. You can't tell a Slasher by his tainted aura or by a blood test. They could be absolutely anyone, and most of the time, retain just enough of their sanity to mix in with society and hide amongst their prey, and as for the ones that can't, well, let's just say the more obvious their Slasher powers are, the harder they are to kill.
Slashers have an interesting little oddity among the nWoD antagonists. The term Slasher isn't really any more specific than the term 'vampire' or the term 'magic-user', and even those definitions cover some basic things, like a weakness to sunlight or an ability to perform magic. 'Slasher' really doesn't give you any more information than supernatural murderer. You may think you're fighting a Legend, who can only be called up and defeated by a virgin, when instead, he turns out to be a Psycho, who rams a knife into the back of your head when your back is turned. Each archetype of Slasher is completely different to the others, and share absolutely no similarities except for a vaguely defined weakness. This honestly adds to the suspense in running games, and adds to the creepy vagueness of the term 'Slasher.' It's a lot easier to think of the various hunter organizations noting vague similarities in completely different beings, and then listing them under the same blanket term because the alternative is a lot scarier, that there are five separate ways to become one if the fallen hunters.
Slashers should operate on rather the same level that hunters do. Like hunters, their usually isolated and alone in the world, stalking their prey and striking, before retreating to the shadows. It gives the hunters something to think about when they see something of their own techniques and modus operandi in a Slasher, and gives them a bit of empathy, potentially, to the supernaturals they regularly put down. Even worse, if a group of Slashers is working together to bring down the hunter team, the results can become exceedingly messy, as a deadly game of cat and mouse ensues, each waiting for the fatal misstep that brings the other team down first.
Finally, there's something to be said for playing a Slasher. Now, while the book seems to think that this would be everyone's cup of tea, I genuinely advise against it for anything other than solo play. Most of the Slashers in the book are flat out unplayable, for example the Legend (which is tied to a specific story or urban legend) or the Mask (a mute, faceless juggernaut of destruction). Playing a Psycho could be interesting, and could easily become an RPG version of American Psycho, though the characters, to be honest, aren't terribly interesting. There's going to be very little challenge to playing a Slasher who's main target is normal, clueless and totally unaugmented humans. Slashers don't even have any kind of society to politic in, and pretty soon, any Slasher game is going to degenerate into Slashers vs the Police/Hunters/Mages (etc.) or Slashers vs co-eds/co-workers/neighbors. I'm not saying it's impossible, and obviously, the first rule of a game is to have fun, so if you think a Slasher game could work, then by all means, give it a go. Just be sure to go into it knowing what you're doing, because things have the potential to get real dark, real fast.
Here are some works of fiction that I think inspire good Slasher-based games, either as protagonists or antagonists:
Hotline Miami: A bloody fantastic, fun, and very, very challenging video game that is a very unique blend of 80's psychadelia and murder. I just reviewed it in a previous blog post, so I won't rattle on about it here, but the main character is an exceedingly good example of what happens when a person becomes little more than an unending desire to murder.
Heavy Rain: I hesitate to call this one a.....game, as such, more an extended, interactive movie, but the Origami Killer is another very good example of a Psycho-type slasher, who catches his victims off guard and murders them. He's so good that he manages to even pull the trick over the eyes of the player, and can hide among one of the main characters. It's an excellent example of a sympathetic Slasher as well, as once you find out his backstory, it's hard not to feel for him a little,
Dexter: The book or TV series, they're both bloody fantastic, though I personally find the book series much funnier (I'm quite the fan of comedic sociopathy). Dexter makes a very good example of an Avenger or Charmer type Slasher, who hasn't quite made it to the supernatural levels of power just yet, and still has some lingering humanity. Still, he hides within society, and hunts prey more dangerous than he. The TV show makes him a bit more sympathetic, while the book series examines his vigilantism as a simple outlet for exacting his bloodlust on acceptable targets, both completely valid interpretations of the character.
- Kephn
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