HackMaster: The New Edition

[Wraith101]

A new version of HackMaster will be a long way away. They were working on Aces and Eights for the last couple of years and that is finally due out soon.

From what I have read on their boards, they don't expect to keep the AD&D license simply because it took too much effort to get everything approved by wizards.

 

[viscounteric]

Names like "Little Keep on the Borderlands" just make me angry and want to have nothing to do with it.

But, but Little Keep is so much better than the original. Then again, the most memorable sessions for my players involved absolute crap 3rd party modules that I spent 30 minutes rewriting while sipping coffee at a diner.

Plus I didn't see much funny stuff in Slaughterhouse Indigo or most modules for that matter. It's not as if every random encounter is a feces-flinging lemur.

As much as I usually tell my players to support their LGS, you can't beat those prices. I'll tell my four new Hackmaster players to search online for real bargains.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Names like "Little Keep on the Borderlands" just make me angry and want to have nothing to do with it.

I can't imagine anything to do with a game ever making me angry.

 

[Jonny Nexus]

I can't imagine anything to do with a game ever making me angry.

You've clearly never read F.A.T.A.L.

 

[thedungeondelver]

But, but Little Keep is so much better than the original.

No it bloody isn't. You take that back.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

No it bloody isn't. You take that back.

Oh, it absolutely is. The original isn't bad, but Little Keep is just plain better.

 

[Mark Plemmons]

Ah, HackMaster. Seems to inspire love or hate in gamers everywhere. Still, there are a few ideas in this thread I couldn't help responding to.

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.

As someone mentioned already, there's a vast difference between attacking AD&D and parodying it with love. Hackmaster is a labor of love, not mean-spiritedness.

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."

There's some comment on "low-brow" humor in this thread, and I really think it's overexaggerated. Seems to me that there's only a handful of examples of this in the books, but they're discussed so often that it seems like there's a lot more than there really is.

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

Not sure what you mean. This is the first complaint about the editing and layout I think I've heard since HackMaster was released nearly seven years ago. (If you're referring to the errata, much of that was created to level the playing field for HackMaster Association tournaments.)

What were HACKMASTER books printed on? Newsprint? Toilet paper? Howabout something that actually, you know, feels substantial?

Here's another quote that's throwing me for a loop. The paper's no less sturdy than most other RPGs out there, and has been surviving gamer hands for years now.

 

[RFisher]

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.

I actually think the Hacked classic modules are great for the way they change things up a bit & allow people a second-chance to enjoy a classic module w/o it being a straight retread. The humor isn't required for that.

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.

That's a great point!

 

[DM_Jeff]

Ah, you play C&C, too?

That's actually pretty funny! No, as expected I was completely referring to D&D 3.5 as my group plays and sees it. C&C is cool, however.

Anyone here actually PLAY Hackmaster sessions and have good memories to share of how the system and the rules made the session great?

-DM Jeff

 

[Holy Bovine]

I used to own the Hackmaster PH and a few supplements. When we finally got to play the game we found character creation to be a absolute hoot. We were laughing ourselves sick over the the character flaws and backgrounds.

Then we actually started to play and found that the game ran like 1E. junk like THAC0, bizarre saves and other things sucked any fun we were having right out of the game. That and the horrific layout and tiny type face of the PH pretty much put and end to any attempt to play the game again.

I can't say I would be terribly interested in a new edition of Hackmaster.