What about Hackmaster?

Hi,
First post and a doozy, there is no Hack master forum and as Hackmaster is the only really 'new' AD&D being an amalgamation of 1st and 2nd i thought here would be the best place to post. (mods please move if inappropriate. Cheers)

It's no shit off my ass,so long as it's not about 4th edition.

Oops, forgot about Hackmaster!

So long as its only up to 4th Edition, 5th Sucks Ass!

OK, the Hackmaster area is live! (And I moved the Topic to keep things tidy)

Hey, I lurve HackMaster. I've got a HM4 game that has been going on for about 3.5 years, ever since our last GM moved out of town.

Mordenkainen, what don't you like about HackMaster Basic(aka 5th)?

I know the changes were made for a reason, because of WotC - but they are too many and too dramatic compared to 4e HM.

Should I ever run Hackmaster again it will be with 4e personally, not the watered down 5th.

I understand that but does that make it a bad game? Have you played it?

Personally, I would have loved a end product that is a fusion of HM4 and some of the new ideas, but the Reality is that isn't going to happen.

I haven't PLAYED - I've run it. Allow me to clariry my problems with it.

Whilst I quite like the “Building Points” so you can offset bad character generation rolls, and even play a class against “type” for your race (something I am not a fan of normally, but HMB does this quite well).

I DON’T like -

The fractional scores on the attributes.

Quirks and Flaws – IMHO such things should be part of the characterization of a character, not a points driven way of min/maxing.

Skills, Talents, AND Proficiences WTF!

The Honour system, to me its quite simply a heavy-handed way to enforce "proper" roleplaying.

Combat (which is time-consuming and overly complex) has too many sub-rules, special cases, and exceptions etc, etc . . . .

I’ve never liked Spell Points either, I much prefer the way Mr Gygax did it.

They’ve done something I’ve done in the past, making starting hit points equal to their Constitution + Hit Dice. So that’s kinda cool – BUT with Hit Dice only gained every other level, with "dead" levels granting a re-roll of current hit points in order to improve the score – its to fiddly, too much faffing about for me (and my group tbh).

I ran it once, I wasn’t keen – my group REALLY didn’t enjoy it tbh. It’s a bad sigh when your group starts “noticing the time”.

BUT when I ran Castles and Crusades for the first time, we finished in the wee-small hours – and everyone complained because we had to stop . . . . . .

I can understand that it's not your thing. But you don't like Skills and Talents? Really?

That's one of the things that I really hated about the early D&D games, every Human Fighter had pretty much the same skill set, i.e. Hacking Stuff. There really wasn't a good ruleset for fleshing out a character with skills other than Hacking.

You paraphrased that point, I wrote -

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"Skills, Talents, and Proficiences - WTF"

Why all three, as a DM of some experience I find it more freeing to let the Characters develop things as they go along.

Every character in one of my campaigns has Talents/Feats that have grown out of the way the character has been played during his many adventures. No sets of fucking tables with set specific abilites - which generally (thought not always) encourage the Players to "min/max" everything (anyone whos watched "The Gamers - Dorkness Rising" knows the sort of players of which I speak) - all this feat bollox does is encourage a player to take advantages at the cost of character and play like a fucking munchkin.

If you REALLY think that about early D&D, then you are missing the point of the old school revival - GONE are the endless lists of per encounter/per day/at will Feats/Talents/ Tricks or whatever the fuck people want to call them - and BACK is creativity and true roleplaying.

The SECOND game I ran of White Box D&D I had the players write down a list of "things" their character was good at, y'know - riding, dancing, cooking - or whatever. Everyone had 12 mundane "things" they were good at.

People SHOULDN'T need endless lists, it should come out of their head and discussion with the group and their DM.

By the time we started playing basic, we had a Fighter (War-Pig - he was a hard rock fan, hence the name) who could cleave. He had so fucking many natural 20's in combat - I gave him the cleave ability. He had a critical on an 18+, but on a natural '20' any man-sized opponent that was less Hit Dice than him was cleaved in two. It EVOLVED out of playing the character, not from a load of unnecessary rules and lists that are only there to sell more fucking books to gullable munchkins.

The early rulesets were great, they were designed as a starting point - all the skill has gone out of Games Mastery now. As Gary Gygax once said -

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The new D&D is too rule intensive. It's relegated the Dungeon Master to being an entertainer rather than master of the game. It's done away with the archetypes, focused on nothing but combat and character power, lost the group cooperative aspect, bastardized the class-based system, and resembles a comic-book superheroes game more than a fantasy RPG where a player can play any alignment desired, not just lawful good

Skills, Traits, and even Talents (should you decide to use them) should really be decided upon by the players and the DM - not taken from a list that has nothing to do with a groups playing style or needs.

And don't forget -

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The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules . . . .

The SIMPLER the rules the better!

I am Old School and proud, I buy new rules to read all the time - I even run a game or two for various groups (I tend to guest as a DM quite a lot, as well as look after my own) - but nothing NOTHING can beat whats original and best.

After all, with OD&D none of us would be here now would we.

Now that i didn't know about 5th ed.
I have 4th (the one i bought when we used to play Mordy ) and that system is a nice fusion of 1st ed and 2nd ed AD&D IMHO.

But what the fuck? you have skills, talents and proficiency's ?
What is this D&D third ed? too much based on skills and not enuf RPGing.
We play AD&D 2nd ed on a regular basis and the Non-weapon proficencies are a guide not an absolute. we even allow out of class purchase with enuf rationale.

Are 5th ed adventures compatible with 4th?

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But what the fuck? you have skills, talents and proficiency's ?

I know right

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What is this D&D third ed? too much based on skills and not enuf RPGing.

I actually have quite a soft spot for Third/3.5 in retrospect, probably because 4e (not) DnD is so fucking far from the mark its scary. With Third/3.5 you need to tone the Feats right back, with no-one having any at first level - let them "evolve" as part of role-playing and assign them to "fit" the character as he is played rather than as a min/max excersise during character creation.

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We play AD&D 2nd ed on a regular basis and the Non-weapon proficencies are a guide not an absolute. we even allow out of class purchase with enuf rationale.

Absolutely, my new skill system (written for C&C) has no skill lists - just a way of making skill rolls and a form of skill advancement.

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Are 5th ed adventures compatible with 4th?

I've not found any reference on the web, BUT the official line from Kenzer & Co. is that they will be releasing 5e Hakclopedia of Beasts (Volumes One thru Eight) AGAIN!

Someone asked over at the Kenzer Forums, how will the monster books be presented in the new edition?

David_S_Kenzer wrote:

One at a time in traditional format, although they will still be called Hacklopedia of Beasts Volume I" and so on

So its unlikely that they will be compatible without some effort. Now I know every Company has a right to make a living - but thats a serious amount of coin to part with if you want to play the new edition.

I shan't be buying them all over again - thats for sure!

Mordenkainen, in my experience all of that works for a single group. But when you take your character to another group and the new GM, who skill at GM'ing is Worse, Better, or his style is just plain different, then it doesn't work as well.

You say that you like HM4th but that game had all the Skills, Talents, etc. Q&F.

And no, I don't miss the point about the old games. I just didn't like them as well. I like more crunch in my games. More definition.

It sounds like you'd be comfortable with the Dragonsfoot folk actually...

It's all good. whatever game system you can have fun with.

The reason I asked my first question is that I keep reading/meeting people who claim they think that a certain game "Sucks" but they haven't even played/GMed it. Personally, I don't think I'd like D&D 4th and I don't feel like it should even have the name of D&D on it, but I'm not going to go around the 'Net making posts about how I'm going to abuse people who do like it.

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Mordenkainen, in my experience all of that works for a single group. But when you take your character to another group and the new GM, who skill at GM'ing is Worse, Better, or his style is just plain different, then it doesn't work as well.

I vary my style of DM'ing depending on my group. I get to know them all individually before even jumping in - I've been paid to run games at games stores many MANY times. I've even run a game for Don Turnbull (former head of TSR UK) - so I'm pretty confident I know what I am doing! But thanks for the advice

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You say that you like HM4th but that game had all the Skills, Talents, etc. Q&F.

SORT OF, but not really the same - now are they. Skills - fair enough, but even they have 'branched out' a little. The Talents in 4th Ed are Thief Skills, Ogres Toughness etc - as it states in the 4e PHB "Talents are those special abilities that are Race or Class specific* - so its not AT ALL the same really, you can't logically argue that. In the new Basic Book Talents are a list of distinct special abilities purchased from your building points pool - rather than those abilities attached to a Race or Class - TOTALLY different.

Now you have Skills, Universal Skills, Talents (which are now more like Feats), Weapon Proficiencies, AND Armour Proficiences - so really, its not like 4e Hackmaster at all.

They have over egged the pudding . . . . . .

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And no, I don't miss the point about the old games. I just didn't like them as well. I like more crunch in my games. More definition.

Definition and Crunch comes from a good DM, you can have the weakest ruleset in the world - but a good DM can make it work - thats why I only attack WotC and 4e (not) DnD rather than the folks who run/play it.

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It sounds like you'd be comfortable with the Dragonsfoot folk actually...

I'll be comfortable where I want thanks, I started this Forum - I'm not a guest. And yes, the DF folks are lovely.

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It's all good. whatever game system you can have fun with.

Yes, see my above post.

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The reason I asked my first question is that I keep reading/meeting people who claim they think that a certain game "Sucks" but they haven't even played/GMed it. Personally, I don't think I'd like D&D 4th and I don't feel like it should even have the name of D&D on it, but I'm not going to go around the 'Net making posts about how I'm going to abuse people who do like it.

So, you made an assumption - I NEVER comment on a ruleset I haven't AT THE VERY LEAST read thoroughly and most of the time I have ran a game at least once (generally I do at least two sessions before making up my mind).

The current game that bears the name D&D is NOTHING like Dungeons and Dragons, not a jot. Its got elements of it, some of the names remain the same. BUT ITS NOT D&D!

I actually quite liked 4e (not) DnD when it first came out, but after I had run a couple of games the "holes" started to appear - everything works the same, nothing is different or unique to a class - in short - its fucking dull to DM.

If I'm bored aI cannot give my all to my players - and soon they will be bored too. On a side note, when I announced the change to C&C - two of my Players said "Thank god, we've had enough of the 4e rules" LoL!

Back in the 'Old Days' "Crunch" (as you call it) came from the Dungeon Master. If something was too simple, he changed it - if something didn't work, he added to it - and so on.

THATS the beauty of more Old School games - they are easily modified and "crunched" to suit your style of DM'ing and your groups style of play. If there are too many rules, its harder to take things away without wrecking another part of the ruleset.

Don Turnbul (sorry to name drop again) once said to me at a Con (all those years ago LoL), "don't rely on the rules too much - always try to make some of it up as you go along; both you and your players will have more fun that way". Don was a WIZARD ar rolling Dice behind his DM's screen. He rarely used the numbers rolled, just used whatever numbers were 'appropriate' to the situation LoL (My apologies to any of his players who might read this - if I have shattered the illusion, I am sorry) god bless him, he was a character.

C&C’s almost infinite compatibility (admittedly sometimes with a few tweaks) with AD&D/D&D/or Hackmaster (so there will NEVER be a shortage of source material, even the more exotic races from 3rd Edition are Compatible) - makes it a BOON to any DM.

The Seige Engine mechanic meas there is LITERALLY no need for skill lists or feats unless you really want them (I know of a group that imported 3.5 eds feats and they work fine).

Oh crap, ranting again - back to my point -

The thing is, TECHNICALLY the more you change D&D the less it actually IS D&D - its like chinese whispers everything changes too much. Hackmaster Basic has WAY more in common with Dungeons & Dragons than 4e (not) DnD.

I'm not saying don't play Hackmaster Basic, it just reads like a panic manual - "We can't do Hackmaster like we were, so lets make as many unnecessary changes as we can to make it into a new product" - and before you moan and bitch and whine about that remark, I'm not on my own in that assessment.

I know they had to make changes, but IF they had been clever they could have kept it more like the great game it was.

You're wrong about the HM4 Talents. Thief Skills are a Class Skill. "Ogre Toughness" is a Talent. You had to pay BPs for all talents. It's just that some Talents were restricted that some of them could only be taken by certain races.

You're also wrong about the motivation for the changes. Yes, there are many things that had to be changed due to the IP, but many of the changes are things that I have always hated about D&D, like the arbitrary Combat Rounds. Counting Seconds is a much system IMHO.

The problem I have with how you describe you allow characters to "Be Good At Something" is how does a Player know just how good their Character is compared to the rest of the Game World? "Being Good At" a skill doesn't really tell you How Good you are.

The basic Skill system is based on the Skill System from Aces&Eights.

I may have made a mistake about the EXACT way talents work, but Im not sitting here with the books on my lap whilst I type. But its a fact the way Talents work in HMB is a lot more "open" than H4 - more like 3.5 (not) DnD (and therefore more open to abuse).

When I started running D&D I was 14 (In fact it was a Birthday present), I was the DM and at least we HAD some form of Skill system.

You seem to be taking great offense at me not liking Hackmaster Basic - I'm not a fan, my Group aren't keen - and the guys I've ran Hackmaster 4 for on occasion really hate it.

Hackmaster Basic is unlikely to take the RPG World by storm, no matter how you defend it.

PLUS might I point out what it says on this section of the Forum - "Hackmaster Basic Stuff WILL be open to abuse" - if you don't like it - TOUGH!