the rules for hunters are: every hunter must wear a white trash bag. hunters can only carry one sword. the only weapons which may be used are those provided by the hunt coordinators, and the only valid type of attack (ignoring dactyls and the black knight) is a hit on a trash bag using a weapon which the player is holding. (in other words, swords cannot be thrown.)
if a hunter is killed, he surrenders his sword to the monster who killed him, and goes to hunt central to get a new one. hunters who don't have swords are thus off-limits for monsters and may not interfere with other battles. he also surrenders any special swords, shields, amulets, hunting licenses, fish, or other objects (though, honestly, if a hunter is really attached to his fish, don't worry about it too much), but does not surrender gold or xp.
if a hunter kills a monster, the monster gives the hunter some amount of gold and experience. the amount is partly based on how hard that particular monster is to kill (named monsters are harder than orcs and hobgoblins, in general), and partly on the monster's opinion of how hard the hunter worked for the kill. when a monster is killed, he does not surrender any weapons or armour, but must go to monster regen (the only purpose of this is to slow down monsters between lives, but monsters can also drop off swords and pick up more coins while they're there.
every monster which can be killed by being hit with a newspaper sword under any circumstances must wear a black trash bag (depending on the combat rules chosen, the black knight may be an exception to this). if a monster is not wearing a black trash bag, he cannot be killed with a hit to the torso area. with the exception of the pterodactyls and the black knight, all monsters who do not wear trash bags are invincible. so don't hit them.
creatures wearing trash bag armour are killed if and only if they receive a direct hit on the armour. the monster is the final arbiter as to whether or not such a hit occurred. after the 1999 hunt, we discussed the possibility of adding a rule that any hunter or monster who delivers a hit to the head automatically dies, in order to discourage carelessness.
neither hunters nor monsters may travel in groups of more than six individuals. larger groups of hunters can be broken up by monsters, larger groups of monsters can be yelled at by other monsters, and should be duly ashamed of themselves. also, hunters and monsters should stay away from the other team's regen area.
if pterodactyl eggs are being hidden, they should be ignored by monsters, and can be picked up by any players. prizes inside eggs are redeemed at hunt central.