Hackmaster - Thinking about staring up a game and need info/thoughts

[JiffyPopTart]

So...I have been reading through all my various and sundry RPG products trying to figure out something to start up a campaign of that will bring back the thrill of the old days.

I purchased back when they first came out the Hackmaster DMG, PHB, and first monster book.

I am thinking of taking a crack at running the game and have been taking a close look at the two books.

I am very familiar with 1e and have been trying to wrap my brain around the differences. The major thing I see that was added was the idea of HONOR POINTS and the system that goes along with. I have no experience with the system in play, however, and could use a review of someone who has gone down the road.

So, to sum up my thread. Two questions....

1. Is Hackmaster a fun game to have a campaign in?

2. What are some things that make it different than 1e, either good or bad?

DS

 

[Treebore]

Wouldn't it be best to go to the Kenzer boards and ask the fans of it their opinion? I doubt very many of them come to ENWorld, and most of the people who do hang around here got overly hung up on the parody humor of HM, let alone its heavy 1E influence. So if you really want to hear from people who ENJOY the RPG, I think going to the Kenzer boards and signing up will be a good idea.

Personally I think there are tons of cool things in HM, but what I got hung up on is it took the complexity of 1E to levels similar to 2E and all its option books. I do own a lot of it, but again that is due to all the cool topics they deal with in depth that I do like having, but I tend to seriously tone down rules complexity in my games, especially for the last 5 to 6 years.

So it got caught in that area where they give me plenty of info, and I rather have too much rather than not enough, but when I tried to simplify it to my tastes, it didn't work very well.

Over on the Kenzer boards you will find people who played the heck out of it, and probably even still play it, and can tell you about this game from the perspective of being a fan and lots of play experience.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Thanks for the review, but when learning about something over the internet I usually value criticism (not whining) over praise.

Also, I have a limited "Internet Time" budget and spend my gaming portion thereof pretty much solely at ENworld.

I don't even play DnD anymore and use ENworld as my gaming fix!! Mostly because I know the board well and the ratio of jerks to fun folks is much better than the internet average.

DS

PS If anyone has anything further to post about the game, I own the "4e" Hackmaster, not Hackmaster Basic. I have no intention of purchasing the newer one.

 

[Treebore]

My experience taught me that listening to people who criticize RPG's means I would not have played a lot of RPG's that I have played. They focus on maybe 4 or 5 things that bothered them and then burn the house down because of them. Plus that vast majority of internet critics never play the RPG's they criticize, or maybe played one session. I have learned that to truly understand and learn a game you have to sit down and play it.

Which are all reasons why I quit writing reviews. I now find people who like an RPG I am interested in it, ask them why they like it, then give it a try myself when I can. Sometimes it has taken me a number of years to find people to give it a try with, but more often than not I have found I like an RPG better than any number of so called "critics" said I would, whether I liked them enough or not based on my own opinion to continue playing them.

I have even been lucky enough to have found two groups, on nearly three years old now, where all we do is play RPG's on a rotating schedule simply to try them out. So now I can talk about Jovian Chronicles, Gear Kreig, Paranoia, EPIC rpg, Twilight 2000, Aces and Eights, CORTEX, Eclipse Phase, Go fer yer Gun, Gamma World 1E, Swords and Wizardry, Warhammer 2E, Hackmaster Basic, GURPS 4E, Shadowrun 4E, Legends of the 5 Rings 3E and 4E, and a number of other games as someone who has actually played them, and played them for a number of weeks so that we actually figured out how all the rules work and how well they are in real play.

So obviously we will have to disagree on who is the best source for good knowledgeable information for a given RPG. I personally prefer people who know what they are talking about rather than people who read it over, and maybe played it a night or two, and think they really know the game in question.

If they did know, and I listened to their "expert" opinions, I would like far fewer RPG's.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Well...you do have to have a good internet filter in your head when reading reviews, that is for sure...

If someones opening line in a review of 3.5 was something along the lines of "OMG...now the darkness spell actually MAKES light. This is the stupidest idea in the history of gaming" then I probably am going to ignore everything they have to say after it.

For example, I read in someones review of Civ 5 "They took everything good from Civ 4 away." That pretty much tells me the reviewer has no grasp on the ability to write a good review.

On the other hand, if someone reviewed 4e and said "I thought that 4e was supposed to help the group not keep track of a bunch of spells in combat (A problem I had with 3e) and instead it just instituted keeping track of a bunch of conditions and modifiers from powers..." that would be a negative review that I found useful.

So, we shall agree to disagree about our tastes in reviews and I shall sit back and hope someone has a useful review to share.

DS

 

[pming]

Hiya.

I DM'ed a 4e Hackmaster campaign for about a year and a half to two years. Here's my thoughts.

HM4 plays primarily like a 1e base with some 2e ideas (I'm talking AD&D here). Stats all have a % associated with them, and when the character gains a level, they get to roll a die type (different for each stat, based on their class) for each stat. When a % of 101+ is reached, that stat goes up one point and 100% is removed from the %. Rinse, repeat. This allows a character's stats to increase over time. The beauty of this is that it is dirt simple to house rule in other ways of increaseing or decreasing stats via the %. For example, it's easy enough to rule that a character who gets laying-in-bed-puking-sick has all his stats % reduced by 50, or that a character can 'train' a stat up over time, getting +1% for every full week of training, etc.

Hit Points for low level characters have increased dramatically; a typical 1st level character would have around 25hp. Monsters also have increased hp, however, so players who expect to smack a kobold for 9 points of damage and have it die are going to be in for a rude awakening... While this does allow for a lot longer adventures, it also can drag fights out a little. Not too much, as the Critical Hit rules can easily take out a creature/character.

Classes have been greatly increased in the sheer number of choices, if you add in the 4 class books (Spellslingers Guide, Zealots Guide, Griftmasters Guide and the Combatants Guide), you have more choices than you can wave a dead gazebo at.

The biggest drawback to all of this is initial level of complexity. For the non-experienced, HM4 is likely too much to handle. Trying to keep track of some of the new innovations (Alignment Infraction Points, Honor Points, Threshold of Pain checks, etc.) simply are too much. For me, I ignored the AiP's, I simplified the giving/takeing of Honor Points, and a few other things. But that's one of the hidden beauties of HM4: very modular. If you don't want to deal with the complexities of the Critical Hit system...just say Crits do double damage. Don't like the Honor stuff? Drop it completely. Anything you change, drop or add isn't likely to have much (if any) effect on any other part of the game.

My suggestion: make a couple of characters yourself and see if you like where it's going. If so, get the guys/gals together and hand them a character and role-play a simple caravan attack, or 4-room cave/dungeon, etc. and see if you all like it. That's the best way to see if you like HM4; play it. It plays as serious or campy as you like.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Thanks pming!

That was EXACTLY the kind of review I was looking for.

My eyes glazed over at the Alignment Infraction charting. It looked so complex I was fairly certain the whole section was a joke.

I love the idea of the Honor Points (and it give me a reason to play out normally boring things like going to town to buy a donkey) and the expanded skill descriptions.

It's good to hear that we can jettison any of the add-ons to DnD 1e that aren't worth the effort without compromising the game. That is a huge plus.

DS

 

[pming]

Hiya.

Glad I could help.

Some of the things I could have mentioned, but didn't for space, are:

Skills: They are % based. They increase with level, but can also be increased via training. I house-ruled skills so that they increase over time naturally (when used), and have a system where 'training' in done during actual game play in stead of the "when you level you spend some time learning more".

Magic: Casters get more than normal 1e/2e characters do. You can also specialize in magical types (ala 2e), but you can further "double-specialize" if you really want to. All this extra info and a bajillion other class/sub-class choices are in the Spellslingers and Zealots guides.

Monsters: Oh, the wonderful additional stuff of HM4 monsters! Each monster has a section called "Yield". In it are the little extras you can expect to be able to salvage/find/extract/etc from that particular monster. The info found in the Yield section is: Medicinal, Spell Components, Hide/Trophy Items, Treasure and Other. Good stuff!

Oh, did I mention the drinking rules? Each race/class has a base 'intoxication' level. Different types of drinks have different ratings. The more you drink, the harder it is for you to stay sober. Eventually you find yourself intoxicated, with a list of bonuses/penalties associated with your particular level of inoxication. My group has had great fun with this simple system.

There's all the normal 1e DMG goodness as well; info on economics, NPC hierlings, spell research, governmental types, etc. Awesome stuff, really...and all completely ignorable if you don't care for it.

Enjoy!

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[theemrys]

I ran it for a while and loved it. It gave me the nostalga factor of 1e / 2e and improved in a lot of the areas that bugged me. Also, I like how much of it is modular in a way that you can take it or leave it. It's pretty easy to leave out things you think are too complex and just add them back in down the road if you want.

For example, we didn't deal with alignment infactions at all.. just wasn't big for us. Also we loved the idea of the honour system but were just really integrating it when our game came to stop. It was fun though when the BBG started using honour back against them though...

One of our favourite parts was the crit tables... both giving and recieving. It helped add an interesting danger element, even when you had lots of HP. Also the "adversarial" style was fun to play a bit since we didn't take it over the top. Coupons also came up once and a while and were quite entertaining.

Sure, some of the humour elements were there for us but we played it pretty seriously and everyone seemed to enjoy.