YMMV / Hunter: The Vigil

• Alternative Character Interpretation: How heroic and justified the Hunters are in what they do is up to debate. On one hand, the narration notes that hunters are trying to what they see as a good and decent thing, and they are for the most part focused on protecting humans from the horrors of the supernatural, which are genuinely vicious and dangerous. On the other hand, books from the other gamelines note that the majority of hunters are still often either unable or unwilling to try and see that some monsters aren't entirely lost, making them feel like Noble Bigots. Not only that, but these books also reveal just how little Hunters know about the Supernatural and how wrong some of their assumptions are, suggesting they are often just making things worse.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • While the Ashwood Abbey is generally recognized as the least popular faction because of their utter depravity and lack of redeeming qualities, there is still a debate over whether they are just hated or more of a Love to Hate group who have their place in the setting.
  • In general, Compacts and Conspiracies who firmly are Villain Protagonists, such as the Hunt Club or the Promethean Conspiracy, tend to be subject to debate among fans; some hate or don't care about them, arguing they shouldn't even be playable because nobody in his right mind would want to root for them and should only exist as antagonist factions, since they barely qualify as hunters. Others like them in a Love to Hate way, and argue they play an important role by both showing how diverse hunters are and driving the point home that just because you are a human hunting monsters doesn't automatically makes you a good guy.
• Broken Base: When the writers revealed that, as part of their work on developing the 2nd edition of Hunter, they were considering whether or not to remove the Ashwood Abbey for its Token Evil Teammate status, a huge split formed in the fandom between those approved of this idea and those who opposed it. The Abbey's defenders argued that the Abbey helped emphasize the Black-and-Gray Morality of Hunters by showing that not all who hunt have squeaky-clean motivations, and also that the Abbey has a unique niche as "hunters who hunt for fun". The Abbey's attackers responded with the fact that the Black-and-Gray Morality is already shown by the different moralities and assorted closet-skeletons of other Hunter groups ^note the Lucifuge being AntiAntiChrists, the Malleus Malleficarium & Long Night being full of The Fundamentalist with all that entails, the MM being led by a rogue ghoul, the Loyalists of Thule's connection to Nazism, etc, and that the "hunt for fun or sport" niche is quite adequately filled by the Bear Lodge, who lack the Abbey's infamous willingness to Rape, Pillage, and Burn.
• Crosses the Line Twice: The main reason some players are still defending the Ashwood Abbey's value as a Compact. They might be depraved psychopaths with no redeeming qualities who commit the worst atrocities, but the things they are doing for their enjoyment are so ridiculously over-the-top, it sometimes ends up making them amusing.
• Complete Monster: See here.
• Evil Is Cool: The Cheiron Group is beloved by many fans despite being utterly amoral, primarily because they have one of the coolest, most creative Endowment and because their Bad Boss/Mad Scientist tendencies make for quite enjoyable Comedic Sociopathy.
• Fandom Rivalry: There is a small but vehement one between a distinct subsect of Hunter fans who view it as "Humanity Is Superior: The Game" and fans of Mage: The Awakening, with the Hunter fans arguing that hunters could and should be able to pose a realistic threat to even the most powerful of archmages, whilst the Mage fans argue that it makes no sense that "puny mortals" should be able to counter some of the most powerful Reality Warpers in the game. It doesn't help that one of the writers of Mage 2nd edition outright agrees with the "mages are superior" camp, stating that the vast majority of "Witches" that hunters put down are the more widely spread and weaker "hedge witches" of the World of Darkness rather than true Awakened, and that even when they do get an Awakened, it's usually either a rookie or one so arrogant that they handed themselves the Idiot Ball.
• Nightmare Fuel: The "Foie Gras" adventure hook. Those guys are humanitarians. Squick.
  • It's even worse. The leader of the cult who makes the stuff sells it in his restaurants. It's suggested that the Game Master make any poor sap who ate at one gain a temporary derangement due to the "UNCLEAN!" factor.
  • And still worse... you see that name? You know how they make foie gras? They pen up geese and force-feed them until their livers bloat to obscene proportions. These guys do it to children.
• Spiritual Successor: At Tier 3, the game might as well be called Technocracy: The Playable. Task Force VALKYRIE and the Cheiron Group in particular are direct expies of the former. Cheiron also has much in common with Pentex.
• The Woobie: Starflower. A psychic with the ability to sense mana by experiencing pain when in the presence of places or people full of it, and who formed an entire hippie group around her special "gift". Unfortunately for her, she found out about mages and mistakenly believed they were harming the Earthmother by draining mana. She initially tried to handle this peacefully, only for one of her attempts to end up in a slaughter when she unwittingly faced off against a pack of werewolves, which ended up with her crippled in a hospital. When she did get out, her own protegee, Redgrove, had turned her entire society into a much more violent and proactive group, and her attempt to return to her initial ideology ended with him forcing her to leave. She is still alive nowadays, and has returned to a normal life for the most part, but she still can hear the Earthmother screaming, and is just trying to ignore it.