HackMaster Player Handbook

[Messageboard Golem]

HackMaster, the game of choice for the Knights of the Dinner Table. Fans have been screaming for this game for years and now it is finally here! This book gives players all they need to know to delve into the wonderful violent world of HackMaster, the role-playing game originally released by Hard 8 Enterprises. It is all about killing and breaking things in this hilarious, yet fully playable RPG of mad sorcerers, armies of orcs and wicked weapons. Get back to your role-playing roots with the game that started it all: HackMaster.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Gonna keep it short.

Anyone who has played AD&D for any amount of time will recognize this game. It is in essence 1st Ed. AD&D with new rules added on.

It is also rather curious. It wants to be both a parody and a playable game. The name, Hackmaster comes from the comic Knights of the Dinner Table- and the game is suppose to be that same game.

At the heart of the system it IS AD&D- You will recognize the Abilities (Some lifted from the Unearthed Arcana), Classes (ditto), Exp. Charts, Equipment tables, To hit charts, etc. But to be fair some new races & classes (apparently taken from the Knights of the Dinner Table comic) have been added as well.

So what has changed? Well to begin with, many of the class descriptions have been modified, and are somewhat sillier then the original rules. A Flaw system, honor system, alignment shift system, and a "hit point system" for armor have all been added. So has a new "Skill/proficency" system. Some of the older charts have been modified (Stats between 11 and 14 are no longer "worthless".

Also, the game "kind of" adopts the same GM v. Players attitude found in Paranoia, but never seems to really fully embrace it. In some places the the GM is encouraged to screw the players, and in other places he is encouraged to be fair.

Do these rules work? Well, I suppose it might be part of the "joke", but many of the new rules seem to be designed to be intenionally difficult to follow. Maybe I am on the low end of the learning curve, but I am still not sure I understand just exactly how some work. Looking at the offical Kenzer boards, and the errata list, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.


Is it worth buying? Only if you really hate 2nd &3rd edition AD&D/D&D, and don't have the 1st edition and UEA books, and don't mind fumbleing through muddy rule explinations. Also be advised that it will be expensive- Not only do you need to buy the PH and GMG buut you will also need multiple Monster Mannuals- (perhaps a part of the joke again, remember the 2nd ed. Monster Mannual? But for the price, it's not a very funny one..).

 

[Messageboard Golem]

It's hard for me to respect a review of a game as complex as HackMaster from someone who obviously has not even played the game. HackMaster does retain the same basic system of AD&D, warts and all. However, it also manages to capture the same spirit and fun of AD&D, and even layers on its own humor.

HackMaster is certainly not as modular and easy to learn as 3E, but it is a great game in its own right that while not for everyone, deserves a look from anyone who has ever felt the thrill of rolling up that first character, only to have him killed by a kobold ten minutes later...

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Mr. Roberts- You are incorrect. I have played this game. I found it rule heavy and bothersome for the most part. In essence it is, as you admit AD&D. The new rules didn't really add alot. Infact constantly having to clarify what the mean to players was tiresome. Expecially when the rules are (intentionally I assume, since part of the game seems designed to encouarge Rule Lawyering) vague.

I will admit, when the writeing was funny, it was laugh out loud funny.

This game will certianly appeal to players who miss the "Good old days" of AD&D, but no longer have the books, or fans of KotD, no doubt.

However I could hobble together a game using 1st/2nd AD&D edition, UE and some house rules just as well as go out and buy this game.....

 

[baakyocalder]

Gonna keep it short, since as a Hackmaster GM since the game came out I could tell anyone more about this book then they would want to know.

Anyone who has played AD&D for any amount of time will recognize this game. It is in essence 1st Ed. AD&D with new rules added on and more attitude.

The attitude and new rules come from 2nd edition AD&D, the Knights of the Dinner Table comic (this being the main game the Knights play), and the twisted minds of David Kenzer, Jolly Blackburn, Brian Jelke, Steve Johannsen, and a horde of their associates, all of whom have their levels and classes listed in this book.

The core of the system is the original AD&D, a system which though less than perfect, is one of the more beloved fantasy systems out there.

Hackmaster complicates the original AD&D game by adding more detailed rules and a more complicated view of society. Sections such as getting your party charter in order, economics, and other matters make it clear that Hackmaster is supposed to be a gameworld in its own right. The base world is Garweeze Wurld, which the Knights play in, but you can make your own world. Equipment has availability codes, so you can't just find that elven chain your battlemage so desires. Keeping the racial limits of original AD&D but adding new races and classes makes the game very interesting, but also gives everyone a reason to consider playing a human. Humans are overall the most superior race, but other races such as pixie-fairies, gnomelings, gnome titans, and grunge elves can be very effective characters.

The major rules mechanics added were: the addition of quirks and flaws, which are
mental, social, and physical problems that can hinder the characters (and also lead to interesting stories like a PC in my game who has all the flaws, including a delusion that the character is an animal, that indicate he must be a brass dragon). Building points allow you to buy talents and skills. Talents are ability enhancers and skills can be learned at any time, a major improvement over prior versions of D&D. Unlike the d20 system, which makes prestige classes more important than regular classes, the prestige classes in Hackmaster, the Hackmaster classes or Hackclasses, are near-impossible to attain. Furthermore experience points needed to obtain a level are based on class; if you like each class to have its own powers, you'll like this part of Hackmaster. A major addition is honor, and Jolly Blackburn and David Kenzer have a great story about what Dave's Knight Errant did to maintain his honor. Honor is a motivational tool to keep the PCs acting appropriate to their class and alignment, to kick some tail and take names, and to not let NPCs push them around. Hackmaster players quickly learn the importance of Honor.

Hackmaster embraces the idea that the world is harsh and the GM should be so, but that the most important rule about the conflict between the players and the GM is that it should not be personal. GMs are to construct level-appropriate encounters that can kill the PCs, but not just kill them on a way; this comes from the KODT Rules of Fair Play.

Despite the claims of others that Hackmaster is a game with a great deal of errata, I find this not to be the case. Hackmaster is a game with a lot of details, and the Hackmaster player's handbook, as well as numerous other Hackmaster books, really don't have that many errors. However, since the spirit of the game is "Darwinism on overdrive," both players and GMs are out to make sure any rules loopholes are interpreted in their favor or at least in some sensible manner.

Furthermore, the jokes are funny. Of course, I enjoyed Gygax's writing style in the old-school D&D material and I like KODT. If you like those in-jokes, you'll find the parody element of Hackmaster funny. See Hackmaster is a playable game and a joke.

As for cost, the Hackmaster PHB costs the same as most other main gaming system books. You really don't need to buy everything to play, as most of the Hackmaster monsters can be easily added to the system (and are being converted to d20) and the older DMGs will work well for many aspects the Hackmaster GMG.

About my only complaint is that the book is not in hardcover; my softcover Hackmaster books fall apart too rapidly but it might be that they are heavily used.

I rate this product five out of five and urge you to take a look at it instead of just dismissing the game as a joke. You might find some good material for your 3e game in it.

Andrew Wayne Franklin
HMGMA#OK-1-00193-01

 

[Celestian]

Do not let the name fool you. Hackmaster is a real game for gamers of old. If you enjoy AD&D then you should at least take a look at Hackmaster.

Hackmaster is based on the AD&D game with changes/additions in areas such as Honor, Fame, Crits/Fumbles spellc mishaps.

This new version of AD&D includes several new classes such as Dark Knight, Berserker and Battlemage as well as some new races such as the grell and gnomelings. Barbarians, assassin and Cavaliers are back and a Ranger that doesn't suck.

Abilities system is close to AD&D with the exception that all abilities now have a percentage score that improves as you level up allowing you to gain points in abilities you use most for that class.

Also introduced in this version is a quirk/flaws system that grants you additional build points to spend on skills and such during the character creation process. There are a many and varied amounts of quirks and flaws which can be hand picked or by the dice giving you a variety of characters to role play. You can skip this entirely if you like but adding a 1 or 2 will give you some good hooks for role playing your character.

Characters are also given tables to generate a background history such as father/mother, siblings, family honor, social class and such.

The skill system is much improved over the old non-weapon prof system allowing you to train skills as you gain gold to spend on schooling.

Talents in the system are also new. They allow a character (at creation) to tweak his racial abilities to give him a unique place in the world. Talents like less sleep, photographic memory, acrobatic, tough hide and spear bonus are just some examples.

Almost all spells from AD&D are included (some renamed) with a pretty good collection of new spells.

A new honor system that keeps track of how other people see your character. Are you considered a lowly deck swab or are you cheered when you walk down the cobbled streets of Farzey? If you keep your honor high you get bonuses to dice rolls and encounters, if its to low, well...

The book itself is 400 pages long of pretty tightly compressed text. No overly large fonts or wide margins. A very USEFUL index and Table of Contents is also part of this tome. It's well worth the 30 dollars if you enjoy AD&D gaming style.

If you've enjoyed AD&D (1 or 2) and are looking for something to add to your game you should really try out this system. The Kenzer company have produced a high quality game under a name that some tag as "silly". Don't let them fool you, the system is well written and will give you many enjoying adventures.

 

[lwmarti]

The Basics

The HackMaster Player's Handbook (PHB) is a 400-page paperback that has a suggested retail price of $29.99 and was written by the HackMaster Development Team: Jolly Blackburn, Brian Jelke, Steve Johansson and David Kenzer. The font is a bit small, but the small font certainly let them pack in lots of material into those 400 pages. On the other hand, it also made me buy my first pair of reading glasses.

Some Context

To help you understand the opinions that I'm about to present, it may help to know that I'm an old-school gamer, so the big question for me when I first looked at HackMaster was whether or not it was a worthy successor to the games that I started playing almost 30 years ago: the original Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) as well as the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) game that followed it. What I've found is that HackMaster is indeed the game that best recreates the feeling of wonder and excitement that gaming was about back then, and the Player's Handbook is one of the critical elements that lets you do this. On the other hand, if you started playing with the Third Edition D&D, HackMaster may not be for you. I really can't say, since I'll never know what it's like to do that.

What's Inside

What's in the HackMaster Player's Handbook lets you create characters that will be quite familiar to players of AD&D, yet have a few additional twists. For example, characters (with a few exceptions) get an additional 20 hit points at first level. Great, you say? On the other hand, monsters also get the additional 20 hit points, so the dynamic of combat is changed considerably in HackMaster from AD&D. Now a group of six kobolds might actually kill a character or two if you're not careful.

HackMaster characters also track their Honor. Having Honor that's suitably high for your level allows you a +1 on any die roll while Honor that's too low for you level gives you a penalty of -1 on any die roll. This bonus or penalty is significant enough so that player's spend a lot of time worrying about their Honor as the game is played.

HackMaster characters are rolled and then modified. Modifications to the rolled character require the use of Building Points (BPs). You get a base level of BPs based on your class and race (including races that are new for HackMaster, including pixie-fairies, gnome titans, gnomelings and grunge elves) but you can also get lots more by giving your character a wide range of quirks and flaws. So it's possible to start the game with a fighter with a Strength of 25, but who has an irrational fear of the color red and giant rats, a bad back and who snores so loudly that he attracts wandering monsters at night to make up for it. On the other hand, the Game Master is supposed to take advantage of the quirks and flaws to make the characters' lives miserable (the HackMaster GameMaster's Guide covers this in detail), so hideously min-maxed characters probably won't last long.

The Humor

There's a bit of humor in the HackMaster PHB. It even explicitly states that it's "a parody of games and the people who play them," and it's not meant to be taken seriously. Some of this humor pokes fun at the wording of some of the old AD&D products in which we were told to follow all the printed rules or we weren't playing AD&D. But since gamers have been selectively ignoring rules ever since the hit location rules were published in the Blackmoor supplement to D&D back in 1975, this is certainly no time to start slavishly following every rule, so if you don't like part of HackMaster, ignore it. Don't like the humor? Ignore it and play HackMaster like the sequel to AD&D. Like the humor? That's fine too.

The Bottom Line

To summarize, if you fondly remember the days of AD&D and are looking for a game that captures the spirit of old-school gaming, HackMaster may be the game for you, and the PHB is your first step towards achieving this goal and having many hours of fun. If that's not what you're looking for, you'll probably do better to stick to the third-party d20 books that are being published today.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Hackmaster is the K&C take on 1st ed. AD&D. The overwhelming majority of rules for this game come straight from the old 1st ed. Players Handbook of AD&D which K&C has licensed from WotC. Since many gamers are familiar with AD&D, I will spend some time on what is different.

Ability scores are improved with time in Hackmaster. Each ability starts with the roll of 3d6 and then gets a d00 roll for a fractional ability score. Players can then use building points to increase the ability or wait and as they increase in level their abilities will increase gradually as well.

Hackmaster uses Building Points or BPs for part of the character generation. These can be used to increase abilities, buy skills, reroll on tables, etc. The main problem with BPs is that you start with almost none. You can buy a talent and maybe a couple of skills if you do not improve any abilities, which is rare with only 3d6 rolls. This leads to another new thing that is pretty weak, Quirks and Flaws.

Quirks and Flaws are what turn your hero character into a major loser. Of course you have to take quirks and flaws for most characters you create because of the BP system Hackmaster uses, so your cool character can quickly become a joke character. This is easily one of the two major flaws of the Hackmaster PHB, or at least for gamers who take their characters and their adventuring seriously.

The other major flaw that quickly becomes apparent in the Hackmaster game is the player vs. GM attitude. With the GM being all powerful, this player vs. GM attitude may be cute for 13 year old GMs bereft of any friends, but is not suited for more socially adapted people. The good news is that a sane GM will ignore this and tone down the quirks and flaws, maybe by giving the players extra BPs without them and a relatively good game will be the result.

Alignment and Honor are taken to extemes where characters must be wary of their hirelings urinating in their canteens ( actual example from book ). Once again, a good GM can tone this part of the game down. I can see where it is important for honor and alignment to be enforced, but with the whole GM vs. player attitude, I can also see where this could easily ruin a game as well.

K&C took the idea of Rolemaster critical hits and did a good job of sprucing up the damage tables. Many of the additions to "hacking and slashing" are quite logical and playable. I like the fact that weapons and armor need maintenance and break down if not properly cared for. All characters have a starting +20 hit point bonus, which is a good idea, but +10 would seem to be more balanced between the classes.

Overall I really like a lot of the improvements K&C has added to game and I will probably steal them for my 1st ed. AD&D games. Being a parody game though is really hurting Hackmaster. Once again, an experienced GM will be able to weed through the parody and pull out the nuggets of gold, but a better written PHB without the parody quite so in your face would be a better resource for those wanting to play a more "serious" style rpg.

 

[Cyric]

Ive been a D20 player from the start and switched to 3.5 as soon as the playershandbook hit the street. But after 4 to 5 years of playing the system I'm still missing some things, mostly concerning charakter creation. So I looked through a wide range of system and finaly tried Hackmaster... and I must admit: I'm totally hooked.
If you played AD&D (1st or 2nd) you will notice a lot stuff that just feels like coming home. If you didn't don't be afraid: the rules are clear, easy to understand and what's most important: easy to learn!

The Player's Handbook comes with more than 400 pages of rules, a big part of which is dedicated to charakter creation (Attributes, skills, talents, etc.) and giving the char a story (heritage, siblings, social status, etc.).

But let me begin from the start...

The first chapter handles the attributes which are the "normal" D&D attributes plus comeliness and honor. While I don't see any real need for an atttribute wholly concerned with attractiveness, honor plays a major part during an Hackmaster seesion and provides help to the player (with extra dice) AND the gamesmaster (more on this in chapter 5).

The second chapter is about races and provides stats for the typical D&D races as well as half-ogers, pixi fearies, gnome titans and gnomelings.

The third chapter is about the classes and there are a lot in the core rules allready. The classes are divided in 4 categories (fighter, magic users, clerics and thiefs) for which class books are allreay availiable. In these categories you find great additions like knight errants (knights without the goody good d&d feel for knightly charakters), assassins and battle mages.

The fourth chapter is about the story behind the Charakter. Here you learn how to roll for social status of your familiy (and the affect this may have to your honor), the size of your family (and who allready died), your starting money (which depends on your race as well as your social class, your charakter class and some other bonus) and other cool stuff. This is one of my favorite chapters as it provides far more backgorund information to charakters as the normal player typically write down. And, as a gamemaster, it provides alot adventure seeds for your campaign.

The fiths chapter is about honor, alignement and fame. One of the great additions to Hackmaster is the concept of group honor as well as group alignement, which has influence to the individual charakter alignement as well as the individual charater honor.
This means that a charater who plays dishonorably will have a negative impact on his fellow players as well. With this concept you as a gamemaster get a handy tool with which you let the group find solutions for inner group problems.
It means a lot work for the GM to track the temporary as well as real honor of each charakter but it's more than worth it,

Chapter six and seven are about charakter quirks and flaws as well as skills and talents. The former giving some extra building points for the rest of the charakter creation. Talking about Building Points: in contrast to D20 (or AD&D) you create your charater with the class and race concepts you know from these systems as well as wirth building points, with which you buy skills and talents or raise your attributes.
Quirks and flaws add a lot of fun to charakter creation as well as making each charakter special. The skill system stays in total opposition to the D20 skill system. While the 3rd Edition tried to give each skill a broader range of usefullness, in Hackmaster each and every skill is different. Therefor, you have a lot of skills (but you have alot buiilding points, too).
I like this system more because with this much broader range not every fighter looks the same.
Talents are what feats are for D20, just some special knowledge or talent which could bot be learned as a skill.

Chapter eight and nine are about money and equipment and both are very well written. Weapons receive sepperate values for damage against small, medium or large opponements, armor and shields get hitpoints (see combat) , but most of the rules are just the typical stuff.

Chapter ten is a short introduction to magic. It explains the eight different schools of magic and give details about casting spells and spell components... nothing special here.

Chapter eleven handles experience and training for next charakter level. The whole concept depends on mentors and real training so in Hackmaster there no "I got the experience, now I have the new skills and feats" feeling from D20. Advancement takes time... and cost a lot of money!

Chapter twelve is combat and this is another one of my favorites because it's EASY! Everything the player needs to know is here and it's written with the pen & paper roleplayer in mind... not with miniature players! That's a great experience afer reading through the 3.5 D20 rules.
Combat rounds are six seconds long each having 10 segments (rolling for initiative gives you the exect segment in which you can attack ir cat your spell). Crits are not just double damage.... but a roll on extensive crit tables (which are NOT part of the palyers handbook but the gamemasters guide, btw).

The chapter 13 to 17 are about the life of adventures, talking about encounter, nsc's, movement, light and such.

Than starts the huge amount of appendixes where you find descriptions of the skills, talents, spells, character creation as well as advancement step by step explanations and a lot of other usefull stuff.

I could write a lot more but beeing a german it was allready quite alot of work to write this review. I felt that I had to write it... because I know that there're a lot of predjudices about Hackmaster but I really think you should give it a try.

As a player the creation process is much more fun than many other systems out there, as a gamemaster rule concepts like honor and fame provide you with a great tool to keep your group under control without using the alignement rule club!

It's a 5 + ... thanks Kenzer & Co for this system!

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Is it me guys or did cyric miss the point of hack master? I love this game because its a playable spoof of first edition\second edition AD&D. Cyric, the appendixes are there because the first edition PHB and DMG were almost half appendixes and the huge honor system makes fun of the fact oriental adventures introduced a complex honor systen for fantasy japan this honor stat was on every character sheet printed by TSR for years after the book was out of print. the knight errant (which btw is the funniest class in the world) spoofes the 12-16 year old min maxer that every gamer with at least fifteen years of experience has had to deal with. I've played AD&D from 1980 till 1989(hated second Ed.)than started in 1999 (loved 3rd Ed.)hack master is a fun throw back to the days of mountains of useless charts and weeks of looking up that obscure rule the gm killed the party with last game. but for the love of pete don't look at this game as a serious venue for role playing (I mean there is a freaking manual in the back on the proper care an feeding of dice..how to roll properly and wot not) cyric look up knights of the dinner table the comic ....... your review must be a joke there is no way possible that you actually think this is not a humorus exploration of how silly first and second Ed. AD&D really was. please say this was a big joke and I took the bate.