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As the title suggests, I'm looking for some recommendations on a RPG system. that has a "Witch Hunting" theme too it. I've been watching a lot of Supernatural lately, and the idea of roaming the country, slaying witches and fighting ghosts/demons/vampires sounds like a lot of fun.

I did a quick Google search, and all I really came up with was Witch Hunter: The Invisible World. Anyone familiar with this one, or have any other recommendations? Would prefer something set in Ye Olde times, Dark Ages or Colonial times, but I wouldn't be completely opposed to a more modern setting.

http://www.amazon.com/Ravenloft-Campaign-Setting-Rulebook-Roleplaying/dp/1588460754

http://www.rogue-games.net/Colonial-Gothic/Colonial-Gothic/colonialgothicrulebook.html

http://www.studio2publishing.com/shop/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=solomon+kane

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/2673/Dark-Ages%3A-Inquisitor?it=1

http://paizo.com/pathfinder/adventurePath/carrionCrown

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite.asp?eidm=50

Another good system for this would be Dragon Warriors, a low fantasy game set in a realistic medieval world:

http://serpentking.com/?p=29

Any edition of Warhammer Fantasy RPG could similarly work:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite.asp?eidm=93

I think the Dragon Age RPG would be absolutely perfect for witch hunting:

http://greenronin.com/dragon_age/

That should get you started.

Also, not RPG-related (directly at least) but the current Magic the Gathering block has a gothic horror theme:

http://wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Products.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/products/innistrad

http://wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Products.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/products/darkascension

http://wizards.com/magic/tcg/productarticle.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/avacynrestored/productinfo

I've heard good things about Dogs in the Vineyard.

http://www.lumpley.com/games/dogsources.html

Never played it myself though.

How about Hunter: The Reckoning?

The entire point is humans being granted the power to hunt and kill the denizens of World of Darkness.

Platuan4th wrote:How about Hunter: The Reckoning?

The entire point is humans being granted the power to hunt and kill the denizens of World of Darkness.

Or the Dark Ages equivalent Dark Ages : Inquisitor

http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Ages-Inquisitor-C-Suleiman/dp/158846282X/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332558477&sr=8-1-fkmr0

Already mentioned DA Inquisitor above.

In Dogs in the Vineyard, you play a sort of Mormon inquisitor working in the Utah territories. I've also heard good things about it.

Manchu wrote:Already mentioned DA Inquisitor above.

In Dogs in the Vineyard, you play a sort of Mormon inquisitor working in the Utah territories. I've also heard good things about it.

ah, frankly i just skimmed the linqs that didn't have any text supporting them.

I would suggest the Savage Worlds rpg, Solomon Kane, but I might be one of the few that like the system.

WFRP has witchunters, and the setting you want.

Dark Heresy...

You can easily make a game surrounding a crusade against witches

Andrewgeddon wrote:As the title suggests, I'm looking for some recommendations on a RPG system. that has a "Witch Hunting" theme too it. I've been watching a lot of Supernatural lately, and the idea of roaming the country, slaying witches and fighting ghosts/demons/vampires sounds like a lot of fun.

I did a quick Google search, and all I really came up with was Witch Hunter: The Invisible World. Anyone familiar with this one, or have any other recommendations? Would prefer something set in Ye Olde times, Dark Ages or Colonial times, but I wouldn't be completely opposed to a more modern setting.

Some good ones:

Beyond the Supernatural (Palladium, 1st ed. out of print, but complete, 2nd edition in print, but barely supported)
Nightbane (Palladium)
Call of Cthulhu (Chaosium)

These are adaptable across all periods. Call of Cthulhu even comes with price lists and support for the 1890s, 1920s and modern day all in one book to make it easier. Beyond the Supernatural is specifically focused on the concept of psychically sensitive individuals searching for and combating supernatural predators and threats. Call of Cthulhu is also geared specifically to this concept. I personally find Chaosiums ruleset to be a lot easier to use for newbies than any of Palladium's rules. Call of Cthulhu is very much a game geared towards the concept of "normal" people seeking out and fighting supernatural threats. Yes the Cthulhu mythos plays a big role in their published campaigns, but the game can be run very easily without even the slightest mention of the Mythos and has plenty of non-mythos related creatures to fight in its beastiary. It also has an exemplary set of rules for dealing with the craizness that comes with fighting the alien and supernatural.

Of all of these I far and away prefer Call of Cthulhu because the player characters don't get any crazy fancy powers, cyberware, hi-tech gadgets or other things to fight their battles with. They get their wits and normally available weapons and that is it. They have to think their way through their problems and not just crush them with magic, psychic powers or heavy weapons. IME this makes for a much more satisfying outcome for all as the common man wins out in the end due to his perseverance, courage and brains. Oh and if you add a copy of the Cthulhu Dark Ages sourcebook you can better fit your genre request, which I seemed to miss first time reading through your post! Doh! In fact I just recently ran a "one off" adventure set in Spain in the 16th century where all of the PCs were either officers of the inquisition or their support staff. Was quite satisfying and still worked well within the ruleset.

Of course any of the settings for these games could be taken and used as support to enable you to otherwise run this genre in *any* game system. I've been running Shadowrun/Call of Cthulhu crossovers for years. It requires some adaptation of things to translate fully into your system of choice, but can be quite fun once you have things ready to go.

Skriker

Have not played it myself.

But, there is Supernatural the RPG. It's even has the Winchester brother on the cover.

Manchu wrote:I think the Dragon Age RPG would be absolutely perfect for witch hunting:
http://greenronin.com/dragon_age/

+1 for Dragon Age - the setting has a dark, realistic undertone to it without going overboard like the WFRP. Whilst the setting itself isn't focused on witch hunts, the dangers of magic occupy a fairly important position within its lore, and it should be fairly easy to whip up a campaign where the players are agents of the Chantry hunting down one or more dangerous "maleficar", or perhaps are common people thrust into some plot about secret rituals and forbidden blood magic.



On a more general note, it's also a fairly easy yet flexible system to learn, and fun to play. Love the stunt point stuff.

Knight Commander Meredith is so freaking hot.

This youtube channel was just posted on the Green Ronin forums - from what I've seen so far, it's a pretty good introduction into the Dragon Age RPG. So if anyone wishes to sate his or her curiosity, maybe these vids would help.

@DA2: Yesh, the lack of different outcomes bothered me - I see what they were trying to do, but it felt a bit too forced, too random. In retrospect, it was still a fun game; the characters and their interaction pretty much were its saving grace.
Here's hoping DA3 will be less consoley again.

Just play D&D. I suggest 3.5 or pathfinder. It's pretty easy to home brew a witch hunting setting and use that.

Overall the biggest first question to ask is how prevelant do you want magic to be. If you want magic to be readily available then definitely go with a high fantasy type game like D&D, Pathfinder or Dragon Age. If instead you want more of a historical type environment with magic on the fringes the Call of Cthulhu and Cthulhu Dark Ages would be a much better fit.

To me witch-hunting doesn't fit well in a world where magic and wizards are fairly common. Though the WFRP focus of more seeking users of *certain* magics as opposed to all magic does work within that context.

Skriker

Skriker wrote:To me witch-hunting doesn't fit well in a world where magic and wizards are fairly common.

Mages/magic aren't really that common in Dragon Age, actually.

In all of Thedas, there's just about 20 Circle towers. Usually, an entire country has just a single tower where it "interns" its mages, and the average tower has, say, ~50 to a hundred inhabitants? Including all those apprentices who don't make the transition to mage but die / get executed in the Harrowing.

The relative rarity of magic is why it is feared by so many people in the first place. Its boons are available only to the rich, and all the common folk ever see of it is a burning farm when some kid accidentally discovered they're able to conjure fire.
Of course there's also a few elven clans and wilder villages that may harbor a mage, or the occasional maleficar hiding amidst the ordinary people. But those are the witches you'd be supposed to hunt down.

That's still more magic than in, say, Call of Cthulhu, of course. However, a setting where it is at least commonly accepted that magic does exit might have its own appeal rather than having the PCs's cause relying entirely on rumors. Plus, the oppression of magic/mages is a rather interesting theme to explore as well.

tl;dr: I'd really not put Dragon Age in the same row as D&D or the WFRP, but rather somewhere between them and Cthulhu.

Thanks for the clarification Lynata...haven't has as much experience with Dragon Age, so from a fantasy stand point it does sound like a good witch-hunting fit. As for magic in Call of Cthulhu, it *does* exist there, just not in the prevelant way it appears in most fantasy settings.

Skriker

Skriker wrote:As for magic in Call of Cthulhu, it *does* exist there, just not in the prevelant way it appears in most fantasy settings.

Yeah - I've not played CoC myself yet (only the Arkham boardgame - which was wicked fun already), but people told me a bit of it. As far as I'm aware, magic does exist but nearly no-one knows about it, right? Meaning you'd have to uncover some horrible secret first, and of course nobody would believe you. At least this is the impression I got from it.

Lynata wrote:

Skriker wrote:As for magic in Call of Cthulhu, it *does* exist there, just not in the prevelant way it appears in most fantasy settings.

Yeah - I've not played CoC myself yet (only the Arkham boardgame - which was wicked fun already), but people told me a bit of it. As far as I'm aware, magic does exist but nearly no-one knows about it, right? Meaning you'd have to uncover some horrible secret first, and of course nobody would believe you. At least this is the impression I got from it.

CoC is mostly just cult stuff, just a handful of people know that magic actually exists. Like you said, it's pretty much just like real life where if you told someone magic was real they'd probably think you were crazy.

Also, magic isn't necessarily all over the place in D&D. A good DM will be able to make up a setting where magic isn't that common.

Lynata wrote:

Skriker wrote:As for magic in Call of Cthulhu, it *does* exist there, just not in the prevelant way it appears in most fantasy settings.

Yeah - I've not played CoC myself yet (only the Arkham boardgame - which was wicked fun already), but people told me a bit of it. As far as I'm aware, magic does exist but nearly no-one knows about it, right? Meaning you'd have to uncover some horrible secret first, and of course nobody would believe you. At least this is the impression I got from it.

Magic exists in CoC, but will likely be a last resort, if that. It tends to drive the suer insane, and requires sources of power that are... unwholeseome... and require further sanity losses to obtain.

Or, in other words: Learning the spell? Lose some sanity. Cast it? Lose some sanity. need to fill up on power to cast again? Lose some sanity.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Phyrexia wrote:Also, magic isn't necessarily all over the place in D&D. A good DM will be able to make up a setting where magic isn't that common.

Sure, but this can be a LOT of work for a GM. 3rd and 4th edition D&D, especially, can get really wonky without magical items as they're an expected part of the player's arsenal, so the math is already figured in. There's optional fixes for this, of course.

Another contender would be Savage Worlds, specifically the 'Savage World of Solomon Kane' setting book, which as I understand it is a puritan Witch Hunter type by Robert Howard of Conan fame.

Lynata wrote:Yeah - I've not played CoC myself yet (only the Arkham boardgame - which was wicked fun already), but people told me a bit of it. As far as I'm aware, magic does exist but nearly no-one knows about it, right? Meaning you'd have to uncover some horrible secret first, and of course nobody would believe you. At least this is the impression I got from it.

At a baseline with the normal campaign premise of CoC yes you are correct, BUT that doesn't mean you have to play it that way. Magic does exist in the game, but is not reliable, is very difficult to master and does unpleasant things to your sanity to learn it at its base level within the rules if you take out the "you must find a major secret" aspect of things away. Makes hunting down practitioners even more important since they eventually tend to be dangerous, psychopathic individuals whose lust for power has led them down a terrible path.

This is in contrast, to say D&D, where magic is a world encompassing thing and is totally prevelant everywhere and anyone with the knack can learn it and wield it safely without affects on their sanity. Yes there are some unpleasant wizared types out there, but as a whole they are more balanced that in CoC where just reading most magical tomes will have a negative impact on the character.

Skriker