Too many hunters!

Bolverk:

There are many more factors than just which group has more people.

You've hit the nail in the head there.

But even if it was just about numbers, one needs to consider that generally it takes a whole cell of hunters to take down one supernatural entity (at least those represented in-game by major templates), and even if they're successful in the first two or three attemps, odds are the cell will lose more members in the long run than any given supernatural type would due to that cell's actions.

To reduce things to the most basic level, say you need at least 3 hunters to take down a werewolf. Sure, one lone hunter may be competent or lucky enough to kill one of those critters, but for each instance of those you'd have multiple cases of hunter cells working on lone critters, some with more than 3 members involved.

Following on that logic and assuming there's 500,000 werewolves around (as per the Forsaken core, if I'm not mistaken), you need at least 1,500,000 hunters active right now in the whole world just to get rid of the werewolves (assuming no other factors play in, and we know they do). Considering the other supernaturals, I think it isn't too out there to 'require' at least 3 million hunters around to deal with all the critters out there. Somehow I don't see all compacts, conspiracies and tier 1 cells amounting to that many people. Some conspiracies are way under that estimate, such as the Lucifuge - and we're talking conspiracies, which are supposed to be the larger ones generally.

So even considering numbers alone, I don't think the logic holds anyway.

glamourweaver:

 It certainly did a book on ancient secret master conspiracies manipulating the world excellently, but considering that this wasn't what HtV was doing AT ALL, I don't see the comparison.

Sorry, Glamour, you are right that it isn't HtV that I'm really aiming for, but rather for the ethereal Borgesian HtV that wasn't.  With terms such as Conspiracy and Compact, the focus of the game needn't have been entirely "investigate then do something drastic" but rather a game wherein Hunters not only sought after monsters but also conspired in the mortal sphere.  There should've been a unifying reason to both work together (apparent alliance) and to conflict for money and status.  Unlike vampires, the effective power area of a Hunter could be far greater -- but unlike vampires, Hunters are easier to kill forever.  And so it is that Hunter at upper levels of power should be dynastic.

glamourweaver:

Is this going to be one of the posts where someone states something as objectively bad, but gives no evidence or argument to demonstrate their case?

Evidence of quality is only self-sustaining when quality can be defended by more than aesthetic taste.  All I can say is I thought it was atrocious.  And all you can do is issue insults.  At least that's how it seems to me.  I can see you're kinda trolling for a flame, but I'm sorry Glamour, I really do not care to listen to this youthful antagony.  I've been on the internet off and on since TRS-80 had scrolling paper as a computer peripheral -- and I've seen how it goes.

Anyone can bark back and forth.  That's what we see on the bulletin boards (or forums) most often.  Right now, we could be arguing about the relative merits of Charles Vess and Marie Stillman, Emily Elders and Dulac.  Or even the relative merits of Rites of the Dragon in comparison to The Library of Babel or The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast.  And what it comes down to in this case is balancing recognizable theme elements and introducing new, unique ideas even those drawn from other sources.  We could say many nifty sources could've been influential (and most weren't) to Hunter: the Vigil. Foucault's Pendulum, Venture Bros., League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Crying of Lot 49, Illuminatus!, Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep, and well other stuff... even GURPS Illuminati all could've been informative and leading.  What we see instead is Hunter: the Vigil that brings some of the richness of Hunter: the Reckoning but also seems part GURPS, part Venture Bros., part Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  I don't expect most were dissapointed, but I was hoping for an improved version with richer and deeper lore.  A nice variety of options exist, but not much lore.  And some of the options are silly, almost "fish malk".

Truth be told, it seems likely to me that either White Wolf is working on a very exciting project or the employee are tired.

I would really not mind too many Hunter groups, but I do not think portrayed power and antiquity of Hunter organizations is so important.  I think what we really might complain about is the depth of detail and imaginative staying power of these organizations.

If it was a troll post (which I don't think it is) september clearly took the bait...

Elreve:

We already have 9 groups with the manpower to destroy all the "big guys [vampires, werewolves, mages, prometheans, changelings]" in the US... [aegis kae doru, ascending ones, cheiron group, lucifuge, malleus maleficarum, TFV, VASCU, order of saint george, les mysteries, heressy of cain] and that makes me think that maybe the supernatural must be really numerous if the hunters haven't ride the world of them...

Wait a moment.  How has this gone unchallenged?

Why exactly do you believe that these groups can do this?

From page 31 of the Hunter core:

Hunter conspiracies are quite large, often comprising of as many as 2000 to 4000 personnel.  It is believed that Task Force: VALKYRIE is among the largest of modern Hunter conspiracies, with an estimated complement of 8000 personnel, but three quarters of that figure are support staff and administraors.  Even quite small conspiracies, such as the Malleus Maleficarum, consist mostly of support personnel, in the form of administrators, researchers, armourers, and so forth.

By contrast, if we assume that the Uratha are distributed evenly among the global population, there are a bit over 20,000 Uratha in the US alone [1], and that's with the depleted figures after the Brethren War.  Let's put it bluntly.  There is an order of magnitude more Uratha in the US alone than there are active field agents in the largest conspiracy.  And not all of TFV's field agents are the type to take on a werewolf; what about all those staff in ADAMSKI, who are responsible for concealing the supernatural?  Every single werewolf, by contrast, can kill a man when naked, simply through their transformed forms.

In fact, the werewolves in the US alone probably outnumber the field agents from all those conspiracies you listed globally.  And the Cainites and the Order of Saint George aren't even interested in the Uratha; the Cainite Rites of Denial don't even work on them that well.

And that's before the Mages (who include people like Project Nightfall, a Guardian group heavily insinuated into the US Intelligence Agencies, the Silver Ladder and the Seers of the Throne (Fabulous Gil probably is responsible, in part, for all those shiny TFV tools)), the Vampires (who are masters at influence), the fact that you can't even find the Changelings in the first place, the fact that Prometheans are one in a million, and so rare enough that your field agents probably don't know what they are, and so on, is taken into account.

So, no.  Your premise is flawed.  The 9 groups together couldn't destroy the supernaturals even if they pooled resources (which they wouldn't do), let alone do it on their own.

Wasn't that easy?

[1] 500,000 Uratha worldwide, global population of 6,000,000,000, US population around 250,000,000.  Scale from that.

EarthScorpion:

Elreve:

We already have 9 groups with the manpower to destroy all the "big guys [vampires, werewolves, mages, prometheans, changelings]" in the US... [aegis kae doru, ascending ones, cheiron group, lucifuge, malleus maleficarum, TFV, VASCU, order of saint george, les mysteries, heressy of cain] and that makes me think that maybe the supernatural must be really numerous if the hunters haven't ride the world of them...

Wait a moment.  How has this gone unchallenged?

Why exactly do you believe that these groups can do this?

From page 31 of the Hunter core:

Hunter conspiracies are quite large, often comprising of as many as 2000 to 4000 personnel.  It is believed that Task Force: VALKYRIE is among the largest of modern Hunter conspiracies, with an estimated complement of 8000 personnel, but three quarters of that figure are support staff and administraors.  Even quite small conspiracies, such as the Malleus Maleficarum, consist mostly of support personnel, in the form of administrators, researchers, armourers, and so forth.

By contrast, if we assume that the Uratha are distributed evenly among the global population, there are a bit over 20,000 Uratha in the US alone [1], and that's with the depleted figures after the Brethren War.  Let's put it bluntly.  There is an order of magnitude more Uratha in the US alone than there are active field agents in the largest conspiracy.  And not all of TFV's field agents are the type to take on a werewolf; what about all those staff in ADAMSKI, who are responsible for concealing the supernatural?  Every single werewolf, by contrast, can kill a man when naked, simply through their transformed forms.

In fact, the werewolves in the US alone probably outnumber the field agents from all those conspiracies you listed globally.  And the Cainites and the Order of Saint George aren't even interested in the Uratha; the Cainite Rites of Denial don't even work on them that well.

And that's before the Mages (who include people like Project Nightfall, a Guardian group heavily insinuated into the US Intelligence Agencies, the Silver Ladder and the Seers of the Throne (Fabulous Gil probably is responsible, in part, for all those shiny TFV tools)), the Vampires (who are masters at influence), the fact that you can't even find the Changelings in the first place, the fact that Prometheans are one in a million, and so rare enough that your field agents probably don't know what they are, and so on, is taken into account.

So, no.  Your premise is flawed.  The 9 groups together couldn't destroy the supernaturals even if they pooled resources (which they wouldn't do), let alone do it on their own.

Wasn't that easy?

[1] 500,000 Uratha worldwide, global population of 6,000,000,000, US population around 250,000,000.  Scale from that.

you left out the Compacts and the Tier 1 cells in that equation Earth.

and you have to keep in mind is that supernaturals are rare (that's not just including all of the splats but supernaturals in general). rare enough for people to dismiss people who don't encounter them as crazy (the combine weight of the Masquerade, the Lie, the Mask, and the Lunacy is nothing compared to humanity's unwillingness to see that there are other things out there).

that is the reason why supernaturals fear humanity (and Hunters in general).

Shock:

you left out the Compacts and the Tier 1 cells in that equation Earth.

and you have to keep in mind is that supernaturals are rare (that's not just including all of the splats but supernaturals in general). rare enough for people to dismiss people who don't encounter them as crazy (the combine weight of the Masquerade, the Lie, the Mask, and the Lunacy is nothing compared to humanity's unwillingness to see that there are other things out there).

Oh, I know I was ignoring the Tier 1 and Tier 2 groups.  Actually, if you think logically about it, many Tier 2 groups are larger than the Tier 3 groups, because they're a loose network.  I'd bet that there's a lot more people in Network Zero or the Long Night than there are in the MM, simply because they're more a general expression of a principle, rather than a specific group with a heritage.  What they pay for though, is lack of organisation.

But that's irrelevant.  What was claimed was that there were "9 groups with the manpower to destroy all the "big guys [vampires, werewolves, mages, prometheans, changelings]" in the US".  Which I proceeded to demolish, as the werewolves in the US alone outnumber the combined field agents of the worldwide presence of all those groups.

It would be possible to make a couple of groups still. We will admit animals

Shock:

and you have to keep in mind is that supernaturals are rare (that's not just including all of the splats but supernaturals in general).

They are, but the point is that even with the multitude of hunter organizations at any level, all the hunters in the world don't really outnumber all the supernaturals combined to the point they could wipe out the nasties.

Shock:

that is the reason why supernaturals fear humanity (and Hunters in general).

They fear hunters as a sort of "elite" troop for humanity, and in that hunters represent what the masses could do if they had a real clue about what's out there - so better to hide their asses. Even then, humanity outnumbers the monsters by several factors, but it doesn't mean the hunters do. I think the number of hunters is being blown out of proportion here, and that people are severely underestimating how many united and organized hunters (if they ever could unite and organize) would be needed to wipe out the critters, no matter how rare the monsters are. Just pay attention to the numbers me and EarthScorpion provided. Ninety organizations with the numbers and manpower reported for TFV still wouldn't cut it even if we're talking just vampires or werewolves, much less the rest.

It's simple, really:
a. about 500,000 werewolves alone
b. biggest conspiracy is about 8,000 people, and most of them are staff
c. 6 billion people in the world

Meaning
a. More werewolves than all field hunters in the world combined, even if you consider all hunter organizations to be as big as TFV is (and they aren't - some of them aren't even remotely close)
b. TFV field agents are almost as rare as Prometheans
c. there's still 10,000+ times more humans in the world than werewolves, meaning the wolfmen are still rare and should watch themselves, hunters or no hunters

i see your point in that if all the conspiracies got together to kill sups, they would still be outnumber but my point is that we are not just talking about the conspiracies.

we are also considering the compacts, and the guy in his garage loading up his shotgun type cells that have a habit of popping up like weeds.

Fabio Sooner:

Shock:

and you have to keep in mind is that supernaturals are rare (that's not just including all of the splats but supernaturals in general).

They are, but the point is that even with the multitude of hunter organizations at any level, all the hunters in the world don't really outnumber all the supernaturals combined to the point they could wipe out the nasties.

that entirely depends on how many people take up the Vigil. while it will not ever happen (too many problems would pop up), it in theory could happen (though the level of supernatural encounters to make the level of hunters to reach the population where they could kill off all of the sup would be too much of a "big reveal" to be in theme with WoD).

simply put, you are not fighting against an organization or a league of organizations. your fighting against humanity it's self.
and Hunter personify that to a T. all it takes is a person to stand up and fight back.

Another thing to consider is just how damn many of them there are, and how hard it is to take them down without alerting the populace to their presence.

Kindred could have one of them for every Thousand, or even Hundred people out there, and if they're careful enough, the blood supply won't be short at all. If you don't mind them being a bit anemic, you can survive nearly indefinitely on a Herd of five or so people. And kindred are always looking to make childer to advance their goals, swell the ranks of their chosen political faction, and much more.

Assume for sanity's sake that the numbers are even more conservative than that, and say that there is one Kindred for every Ten Thousand people out there. Nice, thick herds for the taking. This still means well over half a million Vampires spread out over the globe. Some of them in places without the resources or the manpower to have a serious Hunter presence. Two of the Five clans of Kindred have the inherent ability to make anyone ignore the fact that they exist, even if they're standing in the same room, meaning the potential several hundred thousand kindred that the Hunters wouldn't even be able to track down with any kind of ease.

Even in this (admittedly conservative) scenario, there are still hundreds of thousands of Kindred out there, no matter how many dozens or hundreds you manage to kill in an area. And wherever there's an opening, an unexploited niche, a herd ripe for the fattening, you'll find Kindred not far behind. They can always make more, and those ones can always make more. These next ones might even be more adept at keeping themselves, their actions, their motivations, and especially their whereabouts concealed.

This isn't to say the battle is pointless. Every one you kill is a serious asset denied some ambitious elder's plans, most likely. Every Vampire you hunt down is one less on the streets, one less preying on your neighborhood. Just because a fight is without end doesn't mean it isn't important. Every victory is meaningful. Even if it's just there to give you the drive to move on to the next fight.

I figure that over time a group of hunters will wind up spending more time fighting another group or groups of hunters than they would any of the various supernaturals.  Suspicion that the other guys are actually working for the Vampire, Mage, Demon or whatever your group is fighting will probably surface.  Plus there are the political and religious conflicts.  If your group is made up of anti-federalists they are very likely to be suspicious of Task Force Valkyrie for example.  An interfaith group is going to be suspicious of anyone claiming to have the One-True-Way.