HackMaster: The New Edition

[DM_Jeff]

Wow, $5 apiece? Maybe I should buy some more Hackmaster books (currently have only the PH, the B1 and B2 remakes, and Sir Robilar's City of Brass -- the PH was a very fun read (but didn't make me want to actually play the game), all of the others failed to impress)...

Then you're in my boat, with the exception I also have the Gamemaster Guide and suggest getting that for a bargain if you can find it. These books are very fun and nastolgiv to read, I really enjoyed them, and remember chuckling with findness over all the reads.

But in the end, they were just that-reads. I'd never play the system itself. I moved on from AD&D when new editions were made because I needed improvement, not a rehash when there is a much more streamlined and fun system. I say retire it.

-DM Jeff

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

I moved on ... when new editions were made because I needed improvement, not a rehash when there is a much more streamlined and fun system.

Ah, you play C&C, too?

 

[Kafkonia]

They should make it a serious game, not a bad joke which makes fun of a game (AD&D) that a lot of people like. Names like "Little Keep on the Borderlands" just make me angry and want to have nothing to do with it.

Those bad jokes are apparently required by the arrangement they have with WotC -- which is why the original adventures (such as Slaughterhouse Indigo) and other material (like City of Brass) are much more serious.

I find some of the jokes endearing, although some of the lower-brow stuff can wear thin.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I'd be interested in (new) adventure modules if they left out the humor.

Leave out the humor, and it's not HackMaster. It would be pointless to make a HackMaster module without the humor; it'd be just a module for AD&D. If that's what you want, fine, but don't rely on HackMaster to provide AD&D modules. If it gets to that point, then I'd have no interest in HackMaster. I stopped playing AD&D years ago.

 

[Biohazard]

Leave out the humor, and it's not HackMaster. It would be pointless to make a HackMaster module without the humor; it'd be just a module for AD&D. If that's what you want, fine, but don't rely on HackMaster to provide AD&D modules. If it gets to that point, then I'd have no interest in HackMaster. I stopped playing AD&D years ago.

Look maw, I found me one! Someone who actually plays Hackmaster!!!!

 

[T. Foster]

I like the satire and parody in Hackmaster -- the stuff that takes elements of 1E AD&D and cranks them up to 11 -- Gygax's ostentatious language and authoritarian tone, the baroque and occasionally mutually contradictory rules, the gratuitous sex and violence, the kitchen-sink deliberately anachronistic approach to fantasy, and especially the antagonistic players vs. DM mentality (that all players are rules lawyers who will seek out any loophole to screw up the DM's plans because they have to because the DM is a megalomaniac who delights in nothing more than belittling and humiliating the players). This stuff isn't necessarily funny to someone who'd never played 1E AD&D, but to someone who knows it well, who had the books damn-near memorized as a kid, who can spot all the references, a lot of it is absolutely hilarious, and the fact that it was all clearly done by fellow enthusiasts motivated by love rather than spite (they couldn't skewer the game so effectively without having themselves played it for years (decades even) and having the books virtually memorized themselves) makes it even better. It would certainly have been possible to do a mean-spirited parody of 1E AD&D (and I've seen more than a few over the years) but that's not what I see in Hackmaster.

What I don't like about Hackmaster, however, are the jokes that aren't referential, that aren't specifically satirizing or parodying 1E AD&D, and are expected to be "funny" in a more straightforward manner (the example that stands out most in my mind is the race of gnome-titans with their "groin stomp" special attack). To me, at least, the vast majority of this stuff isn't really funny, some of it is just embarrassingly lame, and it spoils the appeal of the game.

While I agree that Hackmaster-without-humor would be pointless, I do wish the focus of the humor was more on satire and parody of 1E AD&D and less on lame "yuks."

 

[rounser]

They should make it a serious game, not a bad joke which makes fun of a game (AD&D) that a lot of people like. Names like "Little Keep on the Borderlands" just make me angry and want to have nothing to do with it.

It's not an attack though; it's a loving homage to the genre and it's idiosyncracies.

The Simon Pegg movies Sean of the Dead and Hot Fuzz are satires of zombie and buddy cop movies respectively, but there's a deep respect and reverence for the subject matter genre as well. Hackmaster is similar in this respect - a lot of it (thinking Hacklopedias specifically here) is "more AD&D than AD&D". There's a very rich vein of material to be mined there for 3E D&D games, IMO, and one that wouldn't be there if not for the "this one goes to 11" take on D&D that Hackmaster pursues.

Now, if only it was playable...

EDIT: Funny that the post above also used the Spinal Tap reference with regard to HM. Must be a meme.

 

[thedungeondelver]

Personally, I feel that the move toward slick, thick paper is over the top. I'd rather have cheaper paper so that the book can be cheaper. For full color, I understand the shift... but for black and white, keep it cheap.

There's "cheap" and there's "feels like tissue paper". The heavy bond paper in my 1e AD&D books isn't that awful cockroach-colored magazine stock WotC felt compelled to release every damn book in, yet it's durable (considering the use the books I own get and how well they've held up...).

That's more what I was angling at, not the junk they're using these days.

 

[Delta]

They should make it a serious game, not a bad joke which makes fun of a game (AD&D) that a lot of people like. Names like "Little Keep on the Borderlands" just make me angry and want to have nothing to do with it.

QFT x20. Several times I've considered buying a Hackmaster product, and wound up physically cringing from the joke art and language, unable to pick it up.

 

[jdrakeh]

What would you like to see in a new edition of HackMaster?

Editing. And efficient layout.

Kenzer obviously spent their editing budget on the Kalamar books, because HackMaster was an error-ridden disaster. I bought the PHB upon its initial release but when I found that many of the tables for character creation were completely erroneous (and, thus, almost totally useless), I traded it off and moved on to other things.

I checked up on other HackMaster products every now and again (the adventure modules were entertaining), but the editing never did get better than that in the PHB and the layout continued to be horribly inefficient for the remainder of the line (part of that may have been a joke, but it wasn't a very good and/or funny one).

Ultimately, those two things were what kep me from ever playing the game or investing heavily in the product line. If Kenzer had put the same kind of effort into editing and laying out the HackMaster product lines as they did the 3x Kalamar line, I'd probably be playing HackMaster right now, rather than D&D 3.5.

That said, I'm not. Because they didn't.