I fear the Houndmaster is the new Skull Merchant

It's a shame, because with Houndmaster she's clearly a pirate with a doggo friend.

With Skull Merchant, I still can't tell what they're going for. Evil CEO? Comic Book Fangirl? Most Dangerous Game? Discount Predator? Like it felt like they had multiple ideas and just couldn't narrow it down to one.

I still like both characters more than Trickster though.

Perhaps a few DCs here and there, but it doesn't seem the behavior of survivors going against Houndmaster is the same as when survivors go against Skull Merchant.

I've playing SM recently and I have gotten a lot of toxicity, something that I hadn't seen since the days of Forever Freddy (a build that yes, I did use quite a bit). And in those games I didn't camp or tunnel anyone. I didn't BM, I didn't hit them on hook, I didn't do anything to warrant toxicity. Still got hit with tbags (from a survivor who died, mind you) and post-game chat toxicity.

All because of the character.

I don't think the same happens with Houndmaster, even if she isn't fun to go against.

I would change Thrill so it doesn't regain tokens from Penti totems. That way you can target any dull totems around the map before going for the hexes to greatly reduce the effect of Thrill. Would like to see this tried before just nerfing Thrill back to irrelevance.

I am of two minds about Trickster.

I absolutely loathe that he doesn't appeal to any of my darker horror movie-inspired fantasies about "What would it be like to be the killer?", which DBD tries to cater to; in fact I'd argue that that's the whole point. Something he has in common with Wesker, but even then with Wesker there's still the "Dark Fantasy" of being a supervillain (As he feels more like that than a slasher), the memes (Chris! I only have 7 minutes to eat your Peanut Buster!), and the fact that I'm a big Resident Evil fan..

With Trickster being an original character, he doesn't have a pre-existing piece of media for me to fall back on if the execution isn't stellar, and the only memes that seem to exist about Trickster is how much Trickster sucks.. Which is funnily enough the only real joke to his many forced cameos in "Hooked On You"

And while Trickster does feel like a super villain, that villain is "Jared Leto as The Joker!" and I don't think ANYONE actually WANTS that no matter what headspace they're in.

There's also the fact that his name doesn't make any sense, he's "The Trickster!", it honestly feels like a joke based on how much he looks like the Jared Leto Jokester (I imagine his name would be "Jokester" if DC didn't own that trademark as well), I know they tried to salvage a little by giving him a tome that basically says "Oh he's very good at gaslighting people, which is kinda trickstery I guess"

But still with a name like "The Trickster", I expect a character who's like a murderous version of Sun Wukong or Loki, or maybe even something inspired by the Fairfolk, something/someone that's known for using deception for their own amusement and benefit. Nothing in Trickster's kit or in-game character suggests this.

However, my "Other mind" on Trickster says; maybe he DOES fit a fantasy.

The "Evil Rocker", which has been the subject of a few horror stories. Back in the 70's/80's there was this idea that Rock was "The Devil's Music", with bizarre rumors about concerts being a front for satanic rituals and how playing the music backwards reveals messages from the Devil himself!

But this was a Western Phenomenon and it revolved around Rock Music (though as the mainstream jumped from Rock to Pop, you saw fingers being pointed at the likes of Katy Perry and Lady Gaga instead of KISS or Ozzy Osbourne.)

We know this as being a part of the "Satanic Panic"

Trickster kinda misses the mark on being part of this trope due to being associated with KPop and a culture that never actually found musicians suspect.

And this part of me thinks: Maybe Trickster's fine, but his theme "KPop" is just something that doesn't interest me, and them not really leaning into the culture shock of the Satanic Panic but instead going the opposite route of "The danger is in plain sight, but no one sees it!" (Which ironically was a claim of the Satanic Panic…) means that the "theme" is fine, it's just not delievered in a packaging that speaks to my life experience, but might speak to anothers. Meaning Trickster would be merely subjectively bad to me personally, but not objectively bad as a killer overall

Anyway that's just my two cents
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Getting back to Houndmaster, I will admit she does have a similar problem to Trickster in that you can see the trope that's being embodied; For Trickster it's the "Evil Rocker" as I said, and for Houndmaster it's "Ghost Pirate"

The problem is while Trickster seems detached from Evil Rocker by being a K-Pop artist from a nation that did NOT undergo the Satanic Panic and being a pretty boi instead of a bad boi…. Houndmaster is even more detached because the pirate theme is there, it's just not as overt as people may have wanted. The issue is there's very little about Houndmaster aside from lore and her attire (which could be mistaken for "Noblewoman" if you don't know her story) that really screams pirate, and while everyone loves her dog Snug… Pirates are known to rattle their swords and fire flintlocks, not throw dogs at people…. Unless Blackbeard fired dogs out of his cannons which proceeded to stick the landing unharmed everytime and proceed to chew up the British Navy who's ships they were know board, and this is just common knowledge known to literally everyone except me.

There's also the problem that horror stories about Pirates tend to be about ghosts lost at sea, which the name of the chapter kinda alludes to (Doomed Course), and.. Houndmaster's not even dead, so she is tangentially related to her fantasy at best.

While I applaud Houndmaster for not being a straight up spooky scary skeleton with a pirate hat, rattling a saber with a bottle of Yo-ho-ho; she may be a little "Too original" for people to get what she's going for.

Personally I like the Houndmaster, the Carribean accent when she commands Snug around, the fact that her cane is actually a sword, the fact that "Funny dog character" is a staple of Pirates of the Carribean (the most mainstream series that involves ghost pirates) and the fact that she while she doesn't have an eyepatch she does have a weird eye thing… makes her close enough to me (It helps that I associate big-boned darker skinned lady with accent with the Monkey Island's Voodoo Lady character, who although isn't a pirate herself is.. again tangentially related to pirates. Also I really love both Monkey Island and the Voodoo Lady character, so there's that….)

But I understand if others feel she's not quite "Piratey" enough

I think that's the real issue, her design just doesn't play enough to her theme. They avoided cliches to do something more original, but without those cliches she's hard to recognize.

Edit: Oh I forgot to list why I like Skull Merchant more than Trickster. It boils down to, I like the idea of a tech-based killer who uses surveillance devices to track her prey and her kit plays to that idea well; it's just the lore justification for why she's this way is nonsensical. It appeals to me more than "I throw knives and that somehow has something to do with Kpop and being a Trickster!"

"So why don't you like Singularity more then? Isn't he a tech-based killer with surveillance devices."

Being alerted by drones is more fun than "Let me stop looking for survivors to see if there are any survivors where my cameras can see them! Even though the survivors will AVOID these areas because that's what I'd do if I had anything resembling a survival instinct!"

That too, there comes a point where you realize the dog is completely worthless because his AI is terrible so you only use him when the survivor is running in a straight line.

Of course the Survivor is very likely to realize this if said survivor knows anything about Houndmaster and how she plays, meaning the survivor already knows "Do not run in a straight line while escaping". Worse the tell for "Chase" is so easy to here, a loud whistling sound, so even if I am running straight ahead that will be enough to go "Oh right, go slightly to the left"

Meaning your option is to just use "Search" to clear a generator, and otherwise act like an M1 killer.

Had a game with Houndmaster recently where the dog never touched me, but I still died because once she saw someone she did not let them go.

I think Trickster is called Trickster for few reasons: he allowed his band to die and played himself up as a tragic sole survivor which he used to launch his solo career, he acted as a sadistic serial killer as a pop star and left clues in his music videos and performances as a game, and he literally performs knife-throwing tricks which is his whole power.

Though despite the explanation, I also don't think "The Trickster" is a good name. As for the "fantasy", I think you have a point in that he's a crazy musician who's also a killer, all his cosmetics are flashy and outlandish, and he's constantly giggling maniacally. He's also supposed to represent the "devil in plain sight" kind of killer, he's handsome and charismatic and beloved and he uses this to kill people and get away with it. But that kind of style of serial killer, while good for something like a movie or TV show, is not so fitting for a game about aggressively pursuing random people in the woods and stabbing them with knives. Still, the story at least makes sense to me: psychopathic musician secretly killing people and hiding hints in his music. I don't like the execution, but I get the idea. But it's obvious BHVR made him a K-pop star just to cash in on a pop culture trend that is likely going to age horribly.

For Skull Merchant, I agree that a tech-based killer who hunts people down through surveillance and tracking is a cool idea. The problem is, as I said, they threw so much into her story that it muddles everything and drowns the appeal. Her visual design is terrible because half of it is bland and the other half (i.e. that gas mask) is ridiculous. She's supposed to be cosplaying a manga character and she looks like it, in that she looks like the cheapest and laziest kind of cosplayer, and she barely even looks like a manga character to begin with, she's just wearing overalls and a pointless gas mask that doesn't do anything. Her cosmetics sell the idea of a cosplayer better because those designs look a lot more like the kinds of stylish characters that come from Japan, but then that's you having to pay money to make the character look like what they're supposed to look like.

And her lore, I loathe, because it wastes so much time on things that don't matter and spares NO time for the things that do matter. Her daddy was a manga artist who moved to Brazil and may have had cursed dreams of the future of his daughter turning into a serial killer, and Adrianna went to a nice school where she was super smart but hated the girl who got better grades than her but didn't do anything about it… And then she started a manga fansite, and somehow became a millionaire through it? As a teenager? In Brazil? And then became a corporate CEO, and started killing competitors for fun and profit. But where does she get the technology to do that? Did she buy it? Did she make it? How does no one notice all these wealthy executives getting murdered? And why the hell is she even called the Skull Merchant in the first place? Why the skulls? None of this makes sense, nothing that should be explained is explained.

When she was first revealed and I didn't know her lore much, I assumed she was going to be some kind of South American arms dealer who sold deadly technology to countries and criminals alike, and tested her inventions on people for "quality assurance" and live demonstrations. I thought that idea was cool. But then it turned out she's just a rich girl who dresses up and kills people for nonsensical reasons. I consider her BHVR's worst original killer because her visual design is dumb, her power has been a nonstop mess since her release, and her lore reads like something from WattPad.

For Houndmaster, I like her concept for the most part. Great accent, love that she's a brutal Caribbean woman, you rarely ever see a character like that in a major role. I'm fine with her having a dog because an evil pirate captain who tears apart their victims with a pack of personally-trained hounds is novel, stylish, and doesn't stretch the bounds of reality too far. Her weapon being an opulent cane sword is cool. The Entity-induced scar on her face is a nice touch though it could be a little more extreme to sell her evil better. It's just her outfit that feels like it falls a little short and doesn't do the pirate thing well enough.

I would have been totally fine with a wicked skeleton ghost pirate chasing survivors around with a sword and chortling "yar-har-har" all the time. Maybe bring in some vile ocean curse that lets him wield water as a weapon, something like that. I would have enjoyed that kind of pirate killer. But the Houndmaster is good too. My only real problem with her is that she's pitifully weak, especially when her character concept is good. I want to play this character, but I don't want to play her power when it sucks so badly.