Bundle of Holding - Hackmaster

HackMaster is a solid OSR-style system, whether we are talking about the (parody) 4th edition or the now more than a decade-old 5th edition (which is what this current Hackmaster Bundle is all about).

Adventurer! We've resurrected (for a second time!) our March 2016 HackMaster Bundle featuring HackMaster, the tabletop fantasy roleplaying game from Kenzer and Company. Originally a parody introduced in Jolly Blackburn's long-running gaming comic Knights of the Dinner Table, HackMaster has evolved into a full-fledged, serious (well, semi-serious) FRPG. Once again this HackMaster offer – revived alongside our all-new companion offer from Kenzer, KoDT Trouble 7 – gives you everything you need for your own HM campaign, including all the core rulebooks, for an unbeatable bargain price.

For just US$12.95 you get all five titles in our Player Collection (retail value $57) as DRM-free ebooks, including the complete 405-page HackMaster Player's Handbook; two volumes of priest spells, Zealot's Guide: Book 1 and Book 2; and the adventures In the Realm of the Elm King and its sequel Legacy of the Elm King.

And if you pay more than the threshold price of $28.45, you'll level up and also get our entire Gamemaster Collection with three more supplements worth an additional $95, including the 370-page HackMaster GameMaster's Guide, the 387-page Hacklopedia of Beasts monster manual, and the campaign setting Frandor's Keep.

 

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HackMaster Coupons/Tokens

Earlier this week I had an....interesting...interaction with somebody on Facebook who was slamming my beloved HackMaster (4th Edition). I didn't go full-on fanboy and I'll spare everyone the details, but in the broad strokes the game was slammed as "not successful" and a "joke".

Now on a couple of levels I get it, mostly because the licensing agreement required a certain level of parody. Thing is, the majority of the "humor/parody" in the game is stuff that simply worked to begin with....like the idea of the Gnome Titan Groin Stomp or (again) the idea of Gnome Titan bars having an in-house weak poisoned drink called the Gutbuster. Getting kicked in the nads and (military) Grog Bowls are real world things....and players will undoubtedly interject far more humor into your game than what a game designer can write. The broader, rather silly, joke elements were usually, and easily discarded by the players and GMs......Gnome Titans were pretty rare.

....also, someone else in the larger gaming group was proud that they had managed to acquire some OOP KenzerCo HackMaster gaming books that still had their coupons!

Coupons were another joke/parody element that were largely pushed aside by the overwhelming majority of HackMaster players/groups. First off, the majority of the coupons were minor things easily hand-waived at the table. Things like having an extra healing potion or some generic piece of needed equipment....but there were some pretty good gems that were harder to find. The coupons had rarity levels!

They also had GM coupons and there was a coupon book. The GM coupons also ranged from relatively benign to straight-up "Killer GM". GMs were encouraged to retaliate in kind to coupon use. Players use a coupon that essentially negates a PC death.....the GM can, assuming they have one on hand, play "He's Dead Jim", which instantly kills a PC....GM's choice. Oh yeah, just the presence of such a coupon generally keeps things civil amongst a group. To me the real "joke" is that KenzerCo made/sold a product that gamers were eager to buy, but never use!

We still used the occasional coupon, and if you weren't a dick about it, neither was the GM. If you had a killer GM then you're problem wasn't coupon use, but general play.

While I had a metric butt-load of coupons, both GM and Player, I recall using one....one coupon in seven or eight years of play. I had traveled across the country for work and managed to drive a couple hours to play in a some friends' home group. I brought my DS Invoker and during the course of play I played my one coupon. I don't recall the name, but the effect was I got to cast one 1st Level Spell for free (no cost for components). This is generally a low-power throwaway coupon, especially since 1st level spells are cheap...except one: Find Familiar. Cost really wasn't an issue as it was only 1,000 GP. No, the real value in the coupon was that DS Invokers are prohibited from casting Conjuration magic, so this coupon let me break that rule. I lucked out and was able to get a "special" familiar of a Pseudo Dragon, which was perfect for my long-term goals for this PC.

I had considered using some other type of coupons in game, but I ended up instead going to a token system in my 5th Edition (HackMaster 5th edition, sorry not D&D). Players got a token whenever they did something that I thought, as the GM, was really cool, and each player got a token at the end of every game BUT they were not allowed to keep that token. Instead they had to award the token to another player and tell the group why. Basically it was akin to having a table MVP, which was a thing for 4th Edition. Players playing their class and alignment was easy enough to manage through the Honor system, but I liked the idea that players could earn a bit of advantage to "break"....more like "bend" they system. I do not remember the exchange rate, so I might be a bit off, but players could use one token for a +1 die bump, exchange 10 tokens for a re-roll/mulligan, 15 to force a GM re-roll, and each token was worth something like 10 XP per level. I hated it when a player was *just* shy of leveling with the rest of the group.

I think if I was running a group again, I'd tweak and implement a new token system.....

Buildings on my Mind...

I have officially returned from my combination NTRPG Con/Business Trip only to find my domicile worse for the wear due to a series of storms, golf ball-sized hail, and a couple of tornados. Lucky for me the damage was just to my roof and a large spot of ceiling where the water made it's way in.

Not fun, but could definitely have been worse. Now when I double check what I expect to be a HUGE roof-specific deductible, I may feel differently, but for now my stuff...and more importantly my pets, are fine and I like to think I'm occasionally capable of seeing the big picture.

Of course, as these things do, thinking so much about my home weighs heavily when I'm trying to shift mental gears and think about what to post today. Thinking over the myriad of D&D characters I've played over the...decades (yep, I'm old) and one.....one kind of had a home, and I really don't recall any of my player's PCs ever having an "official" residence. Not one single murderhobo dwelling among the lot.....

....and I highly suspect that is closer to the norm for most D&D players.

A big reason, or I think a big part of the reason is simply that the vast majority of PCs don't get to the generalized double-digit levels required of them to build a "stronghold", not that I'm necessarily referring to a "stronghold" in the first place. Aside from that I'm guessing that people who want to play murderhobos want to do murderhobo stuff, and setting up a house is not on the typical KTATTS list.

Now I have seen parties of PCs band together to get a..... "clubhouse" of sorts to work out of, but definitely not a home.

Hmmm......now that I think about it, my one PC that was working on his home/library technically already owned a farmstead. I'm pretty sure I've already told the story about how my PC "bought the farm" at first level (was on my blog, not here), allowing the party successfully complete a four-hour tournament in something like 10 minutes.

Anyway, this one PC was working on building a library even though he wasn't high enough level to have a "stronghold", but I figured it'd take quite a few level's worth of adventuring to get enough resources to finish the thing. Once my PCs get a couple of levels in I like to imagine how, in a perfect game, their adventuring career (or life) would end. This guy was going to use his vast intellect to become basically a doctor....non-magical healer. His goal was to build a community and to build something since he was quite the destructive force as a magical murderhobo.

If I'm a bit off-base, which is not uncommon for me, and you have a need for building a "stronghold", I highly recommend a particular OOP sourcebook: Lord Flataroy's Guide to Fortifications. I loved using this book to plan out OSR building.....not sure I'd spend the $75 or so it's going for now, but if you keep your eyes out for a copy you might luck out....and no...Half Price Books doesn't have any listed.

Hopefully I'm also off-base that PCs building homesteads is more common than I think.....

Finally Getting to Appreciate a Collectable

Well I had plans for this weekend, plans for my time and my money.......but, well you know...shit happens.

Usually it's the bad kind of stuff that gets in your way and ruins your weekend, but every once in a while it's an actual fricken opportunity. Saturday was one such opportunity and I just had to go for it.

I like to think I have a couple cool collectibles, but some of my crap....er stuff, I mean collectibles are kind of hidden away and if you can't see something & enjoy it, does it really exist?

One of these tucked away items is an old HackMaster promotional poster that was never really for sale, but sent out to game stores to push the upcoming (2001) Player's Handbook. I've seen them for sale for around $30 every once in a while (Noble Knight, eBay, etc). Thing is outside of one on display at the KenzerCo office, I've never seen one that hasn't bee folded up for shipping to a game store.

That made my rolled poster, that had been sitting in a tube for a decade or two, a bit on the rarer side......is it valuable? Meh, but to me it is.

The big problem, until Saturday, is that it's a huge poster... a hair over 35" x 24". This makes it kind of a pain in the ass to frame up nicely. I was planning on purchasing some frame chops and getting some glass cut, but if I wanted any kind of matting that was going to be... problematic., and really expensive. Unless I go to a custom glass shop, I can't do glass and plexi is going to cost $90-110. The frame will run $55 before shipping, which will be high since it's considered "oversize". With matting I'm probably looking at $200 for this poster, and that's for plexi, not glass like I'd prefer.

Fortunately for me, somebody had some custom frames made at Hobby Lobby (actually multiple somebodies) and then didn't pick them up. A trio of HUGE wooden/glass frames were marked down from $240 to $67.

Hell yes!

I didn't plan on buying some frames and matt boards, digging out my matt cutter and framing supplies, and nervously do the math and cut out some HUGE matts....but I did and now I have to find a place to display one of my favorite RPG collectables.

 

Some Thoughts on Player vs. Player at the RPG Table

 

Even though lately I've been fortunate to be more of a RPG Player, at my heart I'm most definitely a GM, and I tend to approach things from a GM perspective.

From a GM perspective I theoretically have absolutely no problem with Player vs. Player (PvP) combat and that bleeds over to my thoughts as a Player, but in reality I am hit with the full-force of what I can only call the "societal norms" that PvP is bad.....m'kay. Sure, you may be sitting around the table with friends, family, and/or strangers trying to have fun, and stabbing your fellow party members in the (proverbial) back really takes away from that shared fun.

I think the argument for PvP is the "anything goes, we're all adults here" mentality that kind of assumes that a) we're all adults here and b) we're all rational adults at that. The thing is, my personal experience with PvP runs about 50/50, at best, with the actual reasons for players attacking each other's PCs being in-game vs. out-of-character, and even then the in-game stuff often seems like an excuse for actual out-of-character issues.

I know I've related my 1st HackMaster kill which was my then Brother-in-Law's charismatic Bard being set upon by the clingy party Druid when he switched allegiances to the Big Bad Guy (BBG) in the final battle. Sounded 110% like an in-game reason, but in reality the situation was that my BIL wasn't into RPGs in general and was writing off the experience as a one-off.

Then there was the time, again HackMaster, where we were at one of the two "big" tournaments...we being four of us from our home group and a couple of add-ons. We had a problem player who just didn't play well with others. I won't go into details, but we later found out he had an illegal PC, and his actions eventually got him banned not only from our events, but from the convention itself for a couple of years. Before that happened, however, we just asked the tournament organizers if he could be removed from our table as he was not only dead-weight, but we didn't want him to play with us for reasons....

The organizer's initial response was that we should just handle the situation in-character and assassinate his PC. Of course being a tournament, that would have just hurt our point-total, taken up too much of our limited time, and we'd still have had to play with the guy up until then....and deal with the fallout after.

Ugh.

I really doubt my experiences are that far off with regards to PvP than a lot of other Players and GMs. I'm going to assume that these shared experiences are what help shape the aforementioned societal norms that dictate you just don't attack fellow party members......

....unless.

Of course for some of us there is no "unless". Breaking these norms is just taboo and even if you can somehow justify or rationalize your "bad" behavior, you run the risk of being admonished, ostracized, or even being removed from the group. At a minimum, unless you've got some mental/personality defect of character (narcissism, psychopathy, etc.) you should feel really, really bad for breaking a taboo.

So imagine my thought process when I decided, kind of on a whim, to have my Magic User attack a party member. Yes, I had a rationalization......and it still makes sense to me, but fuuuuuuuuuuuck I really thought I might get myself kicked out of the group. These guys have been playing together for a while now, or at least it feels like they've been gaming together for years, if not decades. Me, I think it's been about a year now. Regardless I'm the newb of the group.

We're exploring these ruins and know there is a BBG somewhat secured in a big-assed room/chamber. We don't know what this BBG is, and based on the motifs and henchmen we've encountered I'm thinking maybe....maybe it is a Medusa. I'm sure now it isn't a Medusa, but not in-character, and definitely not at the time of this event. We have this Thief sucking on fumes hit-point wise and he volunteers to quaff a potion of Gaseous Form and seep into the room and scout things out for us. See if our efforts to contain the BBG are effective or not. My MU is tapped for spells, as is the Cleric, and it's been a bit of a slog, although we're probably much better off than I'm realizing. 

Anyway the Thief comes back and he's completely enamored with whatever this BBG is. Clearly he's been charmed and it's clear this is the BBG's passive effect, probably a line of sight kind of thing. I'm off to the side grilling the Thief to the best of my ability and all he wants to do is let the BBG out and make some introductions. I'm playing along a bit in character, but I'm thinking it's a matter of time before this goes sideways.

This is when I openly tell the GM I'm going to sucker-punch the Thief in an attempt to knock his Charmed ass out. The group is surprised, rightly so, and the GM's initial ruling is that I out-right killed the Thief with the attack......

.....wait....what?

So not my intention.

The GM walks it back, not sure if it was a rule/ruling or holy-fuck the MU just killed the Thief. Wearing my GM hat I suspect it was walked back 'cause it didn't make sense for the MU to bitch-slap the Thief to death. It wasn't a crit and I was clear about my intention. I think the whole thing was a bit of a shock.

We ended the session minutes after and the time between my declaration and the end of the Zoom call.....man did I feel like I just ripped a massive fart in church. Everyone was staring and judging and it was a matter of time before the GM reached out to me to have "the talk". I've been on the receiving end of "the talk" once before (but seriously, fuck that GM....I had already quit, so asking me to not come back was more like him trying to save face). 

Well, that talk never came and everybody seemed ok at last night's session, and maybe it is. I think I've survived and probably will survive this PvP session, but I don't plan on making this a regular thing....

PC Deaths can be a Good Thing....no, Really!

Special Note: For the record....I'm typing this up on a Saturday morning, hours before my bi-weekly game. Just have to mention this in case there happens to be a coincidence between the game and today's subject matter.

I'd like to think that I've had less than my fair share of PC deaths, which is interesting since I like to play HackMaster, which is known to be crunchy and deadly. Of course I might actually have more than my fair share of PC deaths and I just don't remember them because they aren't remarkable or because they were low-level PCs. Who really regrets the loss of a 1st level nobody?

As a GM I have kind of relished killing off the PCs, and have exercised some bragging rights when doing so. In truth though I try to be a bit of a tactician and I'm trying to have and share in the fun at the table. I get a metric shit-ton more mileage out of almost killing a PC. Now I'm not the type to fudge the dice rolls, but bringing a mighty PC down to low single-digits or castrating their abilities in some way......good times. The players fear for the safety of their PCs and the party has to tie up resources covering for the new weakness in their ranks. This can lead to a snowball effect that either makes the party escape by the skin of their teeth or suffer a crushing defeat. I'll risk one for the other any day, but I'll not let you know which one I'm rooting for in the moment...... 

"Fear for the safety".....do players really have feelings about their PCs? I sure hope they do! I want my players to be proud when their PC pulls off something mighty & heroic, and get a bit miffed when things don't go their way. Downright sad, for a while, when their PC actually dies....this is a good thing. No, I'm not a sicko GM.....well maybe I am, but not for this reason. The way I see it, players should be emotionally invested in their PCs. It's what makes the game fun and I think it's what can help make a game, for the lack of a better term, "real". Sure, players can have fun simply because they are hanging out with their friends and generally having a good time, but they can also just do that over pizza a beer.....don't need to be adding dice to the mix then.

What makes role-playing games an actual hobby is this emotional investment and the bond a good game group establishes with each other. I personally look forward to my next game, my next get-together, and I think this is because of this emotional investment in my PCs. Hell, I would also argue this is one of the reasons so many players don't do regular game conventions, unless they end up going with some of their home group members.

<insert Wayne's World doodly-doo noises here> Deep in my old records I have a write-up from my very first official HackMaster tournament as a GM. It's a rather in-depth (and lengthy) account because my table didn't fair so well and there were quite a few PC deaths. At one point there was some yelling/swearing and a chair was kicked a fair bit. I had heard, and disagreed with, how another table breezed through a couple encounters and assumed that the players from the one home-group that sat at my table would file a compliant (I didn't blame them), so immediately after the game I took my notes and wrote up the game. Wow, did I make a bunch of mistakes. With one exception they were all in the players favor, both the player and I had simply forgotten about one of their PC's magic items, but the players really didn't play well. You'd never guess this was an established home group used to playing together. I think the fact it was a late night game hindered their collective cognitive abilities because one PC could have avoided death simply by side-stepping 5' in almost any direction....and this was pretty obvious. <insert Wayne's World doodly-doo noises here>

Back to the intended train of thought.....this group lost several mid-high level PCs and were super pissed in the moment, and not that happy for the rest of the convention. They had been playing these characters for years and had a lot of investment, clearly not just time, in them. I'm sure they were able to resurrect the PCs, albeit with some new quirks and flaws (par for the HackMaster 4th Edition course) and carry on. I'm certain the extremity of their initial reactions were a bit much, but that's the chance you take.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained......had the players made a couple different decisions, like the aforementioned player stepping left two paces or the one player reminding me her PC could run like the dickens due to her magic item, then the party would have gotten their asses handed to them, but the would have survived. The players would have been high-fiving each other and they probably would have won the tournament.

Just remember this the next time you lose a PC and you're pissed off.......this is actually a good thing. Surely more a silver lining, but still.....a good thing. Stop short of kicking that chair, thank you GM, and figure out how you could have avoided that death. Worst case, pick up your 3d6 and hope you can get pissed when you lose this one as well....hopefully a long, long time (and many more levels) than last time.  

Some Personal Experience with one of the KenzerCo D-Team

If you've been reading my ramblings here at the Tavern for the last couple of months you've got to have learned by now that I was a fig HackMaster player and used to volunteer for the folks over at KenzerCo.

I really considered the D-Team (Development Team) at KenzerCo as friends and when you're doing things for friends, working conventions and doing all the extra stuff I did really didn't feel like "work"....until it did and unfortunately that soured things for me. I could easily blame KenzerCo and if I layed everything out some of you may very well do so as well, but I clearly have to shoulder some of that blame not matter what.

I really try not to live with regrets and be accepting of the past that I cannot change, but one regret I have comes with souring my relationship with Steve Johannson, one of the D-Team. I'm not 100%, but I'm pretty sure Stevil from Knights of the Dinner Table was based on Steve Johannson and even though I think the character is an asshole, I lovingly called Steve "Stevil". This Stevil was also a character and could easily come across as an asshole, but in reality he was a great guy who had some awesomely epic rants. You'd be talking to him about something and BAM!, he'd go off on some long tirade sounding like Grandpa Simpson, but without (much) malice.\

One time when visiting the KenzerCo office, which was a hole-in-the wall small warehouse with a conference room and some odd office space (most of the guys worked from home 90% of the time), we we talking about printed modules and I mentioned I had a couple older ones that were in good shape except for some highlighting I had made. Stevil started just going off on how pristine printed adventure modules were an abomination.....an affront to gaming in general. Adventures were meant to be used and abused, dog-eared, and marked-up......basically giving up their "lives" in creating a great gaming session and memories that will last a lifetime.

For all the years volunteering for KenzerCo and with personal visits, etc., I actually had limited gaming experience with the D-Team. I wrote a tongue-in-cheek adventure for GMs at Origins one year and Stevil bellied up to an otherwise full table to play. Instead of playing an "appropriate" PC and overbalancing that table he decided to run a NPC torchbearer....a halfling IIRC. Now I was too busy GMing another table, but I remember seeing Stevil sitting on the floor, barely able to look over the table, his hand held high as he asks one of the PC's, "Do you have enough light?" At another Origins I actually got to play in a Roll-n-Run adventure (you quick roll up 1st level PCs and go on an adventure). Stevil rolled up a Magic User, which is usually considered a bit of a waste for this type of game. Since this was HackMaster 5th Edition you could (at an expensive cost) have your Magic User take a pole-arm for a weapon. For the rest of the game Stevil's Mage loved the spell he called "Cast Spear", which was of course just him using the spear like a really shitty 1st level Fighter. I also got to play at his table at GaryCon (2013) during a Sunday morning pickup game. We ran a few encounters out of the Temple of Existential Evil......I remember enjoying the game, but since it was Sunday morning at a Con...details will be lacking. I do remember the group had a barbarian so poor he had nothing but his weapon....yep, running around "adventuring" nekkid. To throw the guy a bone Stevil threw in as "loot" some nasty, used underwear just so the barbarian wouldn't be completely naked.

Well actually I did play in another of Stevil's games at GaryCon. He had a rough shell of an adventure seed that he ran a group of us through and towards the end of the adventure my Halfling Cleric saved the life of another PC using a particular spell. When that happened Stevil just freakin lit up and he had to stop and tell the rest of the D-Team what I had just done. These guys play together on the regular and when they wrote the new edition they pretty much all thought the spell I had used was pretty much useless and he/they were surprised to see if actually used for once, much less that it worked! After the game Stevil approached me with the idea of me writing/fleshing out the adventure and then he could edit it. Evidently he had the idea, but not the time to do the leg-work. I was elated at the opportunity to write a "real" adventure and went so far as to churn out a map, add art, and even do the cover. There was a drowning mechanic I wrote up, as the adventure required one. Stevil had a better mechanic and had to do some reformatting, but the adventure ended up largely as I wrote it. He even kept the title and cover (but he did change the font for the authors on the cover, which is the only change I didn't care for).

Unfortunately this was our only collaboration because initially I wasn't reimbursed for my work and since I was unemployed, taking a few days "off" to do unpaid work wasn't something I could afford to do. I HIGHLY suspect that in the end Stevil gave me $100 out of his own pocket to pay me for that adventure. I'm not really playing HackMaster anymore (but would like to!) and now that I have a good paying job I could afford to flesh-out more of Steve's ideas......

.....but unfortunately Steve passed away a year ago this weekend. Yes, I intentionally "buried the lead" (pun NOT intended, although I think he'd like that one), but I've been thinking of Steve lately and miss him more than I expected to. His "hands" were intimately involved in so much of my favorite gaming memories, basically anything involving HackMaster or Knights of the Dinner Table.

I appreciate getting the opportunity to share this here and hopefully someone here will tear off that shrink wrap on some saved adventure and start making some notes in the margins in preparation of running their home group in a dice-slinging session. You can always bag it and protect it for use again in the future.......

My Introduction to the HackMaster Association

This last week school started for some folks and a good friend of mine saw his youngest daughter off to college. One of the things she was sent off with was a "party pack" of the most recent Pacesetter Games BX set (has a bunch of extra player's books). She also got some dice, map boards, and some other D&D books (4th Edition?). Her father told me she was interested in playing so I bought a bunch of stuff to do so (on a couple of occasions). Despite me spending more than a couple hundred bucks (my buddy won't read this so I don't mind mentioning that fact) I couldn't get her family to start up a game and I hope that she'll have better luck in college.

Now on the surface I'm sure this seem stupid as hell, especially given that I go by "Frugal GM" with another blog by the same name. Why the hell do you spend that kind of money on NOT playing a game?

In short: because I can.

First off, in my opinion, being Frugal has nothing to do with being cheap. Frugality is about spending money wisely and saving money when and where appropriate. I simply feel that a couple hundred bucks is a worthwhile investment in a buddy's kid, but more importantly, the very real future of the next gaming generation.

I've not made it a secret that I didn't get to game worth a damn growing up, and would maybe argue even still today (but I've had some pretty good stretches). One recurring theme in my personal gaming journey has pretty much been the high barrier-for-entry. My introduction to HackMaster is a good example.

So in 2002 I'm on my Honeymoon in Las Vegas and my new bride decides she wants to visit EVERY comic book store in the greater Las Vegas area. I like comics and most comic books stores also stock games and cool toys, so no problem. At one store I happen upon the HackMaster PHB. Now at this point I haven't slung dice in five, maybe even seven, years and 1st Edition? Decade or two for sure. I recognize the homage that is the cover, but at the same time it's not familiar.....I hope that makes sense. I end up picking up the PHB and...and I'm hooked. I loved the writing and the blend of 1st Edition, 2nd Edition, and home rules. I had bits and bobs of different rules I was wanting to run with another system, but HackMaster just felt so much better.

Now don't get me wrong, I know damned well that HackMaster 4th edition is crunchy, clunky, and has a few of the same problems 1st Edition did, but I loved it. I really wanted to play.

I got my chance nearly a year later when I found out that HackMaster was being run at a game convention in Salt Lake City over Memorial Day. Now this convention is much more an art, sci-fi, and cosplay convention so gaming was there, but almost an after-thought. I tried, and failed, to register for the games I wanted. Evidently the sign-up sheet wasn't there and the registration "guy" was nowhere to be found. My 1st game wasn't until the next day, but I was getting pretty worked up, agitated, down-right pissed off that I could not register for my games! I didn't drive 6 hours, rent a room over a holiday weekend, and subject myself to fricken cosplayers to miss out on a game 'cause some guy can't be bothered to work his volunteer shift!

After the third or fourth visit to the registration desk the convention staff wisely decide to track down the games-guy before this one guest loses it. I didn't know that this really wasn't a gaming con and if I'd just showed up the the right time & table I'd have been good....

Man did I have a good gaming weekend. Aside from one ass-hat blatantly cheating in one miniatures game it was a good time all around. Met a lot of good guys that were in a couple different home groups, but active together in something called the HackMaster Association (HMA), basically a way to track home groups, PCs, and allow for organized play.

Wait, more opportunities to game and a way to have my PC from a Home Game play in a tournament? Sign my ass up!

Yeah, this brief , bright moment of gaming would inevitably crash into that common high "barrier for entry" I referred to. So these new gaming friends a state away were part of one particular Chapter of the HackMaster Association. Since I was living in Boise that placed me into a different Chapter. I could sign up for the HMA, register my home group and even get certified as a Level 1 GameMaster, but anything else I had to work with my Chapter.

Ok....no problem. Let me reach out to the other groups in my Chapter.....oh wait, there's only one, and its in fricken Spokane! That's an eight hour drive. This group isn't active, but the GM sure seems to be. I don't know what the heck is going on yet, but I'm liking this HackMaster game so I'me willing to do some digging......

It ended up that there were a lot of active HackMaster players, groups, and a chapter in Seattle. There was this one group in Eastern Washington led by a bit of a notorious GM. I had a buddy in Boise from GM who was big into the gaming scene there and he was able to fill me in on some details and I was able to do some more digging.

I won't go off too much on this guy, but for you older Air Force Vets that might be reading this.....he retired at 20 years as a Buck Sgt! Says enough for me right there!

Anyway there was this big HMA fight I guess with this one guy wanting, nay demanding, that every other year his home group getting to host the Washington State HMA Championship. I'm not going to comment on fairness or how I think things should have played out, but in the end, this guy (as I heard, remember this is all 2nd hand info) had a hissy fit and decided to form his own chapter. As part of trying to legitimize his chapter he claimed all of Eastern Washington and the whole (player-less) state of Idaho.

It was a bit of work trying to formalize this research, contacting the powers that be, and finally getting to join up with the folks in the SLC area to form a new HMA Chapter. It was a pain, but well worth it. We drove down several times a year to game, folks from "down there" came up to game with use. To this day I'm still friends with some of those folks...

This was a rough introduction to the HackMaster Association, but things got better and at one point I ended up helping to run the darned thing, but that is (probably not) a story for another time.

Not Erik Story: My 1st Kill (HackMaster 4th Edition PC Kill....I'm not a monster)

I'm still in my computer files trying to locate some older gaming "stuff" of mine and I came across my kill sticker sheet, or at least my old HackMaster 4th Edition kill collection.

HackMaster 4th Edition was kind of adversarial between the GM and the party, but not really. It was more of a "for show" kind of thing that was played up in not only some of the source material, but in the Knights of the Dinner Table comics.

Sure, there were definitely some "Killer GMs"  in the wild, but that really doesn't have squat to do with the game system. The game is crunchy, requires a lot of dice, and can be just as lethal or non-lethal as the next game. I think there was this implanted idea of the adversarial GM more as a tool to keep the players in line. Encumbrance was pretty important, as was not having a PC loaded down with too much magic. Knowing that their PCs could be facing an encumbrance or magic item audit, and the disastrous consequences of failing one......well that helped keep PCs in check and helped with some game balance.....

.....don't even get me started with the player coupons! Part of the joke/not a joke aspect of the game....

I think Jolly Blackburn started the tradition of keeping track of PC deaths with kill stickers on his GM shield. It was his way of rubbing failure in the faces of the rather successful (in general) development team (D-Team) at their weekly game sessions. Eventually he published his system of keeping track. Skull colors denoted perma-death or if the PC was resurrected, while the background told the methodology of demise. Strings of chained skulls meant that multiple PCs died in the same adventure/session, and eventually a couple of symbols were added to show if the death was part of a total party kill (TPK) or death at a tournament. Players would be much more likely to over-extend their PCs at a tournament, which could lead to a TPK. I think eventually most groups would do their best to designate a "sole survivor" just to deny the GM a TPK.

I personally added the chicken sticker, based of of Sir Robin's shield in M.......you know, you should get it already......this was to show that somebody "bravely ran away" and quit the adventure just so I couldn't get a TPK. Deny me a kill!!!! I know I later added another symbol to denote a PC purged their honor to avoid a death (like the spineless coward they were!)

This is an older kill shield set because I redid the graphics with a more comical skull, but I doubt I have many more deaths on my most recent set....should I find it.

Color/Text Codes:
White Skull = perma-death
Blue Skull = the PC was resurrected
Red Background = PC was killed by his party (fratricide)
Black Background = Death by monster
White Background = "Miscellaneous" Death
Green Background = Death by Trap
T = Tournament Death
X = Total Party Kill

I wish I could recall the story of each death, but really it's just the 1st one I remember. My brother-in-law was playing with us and he really wasn't into playing RPGs. It was clear it was going to be his first, and last, session. He was playing a bard and it is important to note that one of my other players had a Druid with the cling quirk. It just made sense the Druid would be clingy to the most handsome (HackMaster has a Comeliness stat) and Charismatic PC in the group.

The party had done well figuring out what was stirring up the local goblins and found the evil low-level mage that was using a found wand to lord control over them. Just prior to the BBG (big bad guy, ie. Boss)  battle, when the BBG has a moment to soliloquy, the Bard just walks over and says something to the effect of, "Sounds great, I do hereby pledge my fealty to you..." I sure as hell did not see that one coming. Of course the battle kicks off immediately because the Druid attacks the Bard because, "If I can't have him, then nobody can...."

Ah.....good times. The main party did prevail, killing the Bard, the Mage, and any Goblin foolish enough to stick around....and I got my 1st kill.

Not Erik Story Time: Players Interjecting Humor Wherever they Damned Well Feel Like It

Erik's back in for another stint with the surgeon so I'm filling back in with a little story-telling session.

Now I don't expect folks to remember the last time I filled in, but in one post I talked a bit about HackMaster 4th Edition and how many thought it was a joke game (it wasn't) because of some of the comedic elements (easily removed/ignored), but I mentioned, and still ascertain, that players are players and you can have the most serious game in the world and they'll still interject humor where it doesn't exist, and in some cases needs to be.

I was running a game of HackMaster 5th Edition, using the Garweeze Wurld setting, which was made for 4th Edition and is the backdrop for the Knights of the Dinner Table Magazine.The new edition of the game is rather magic light and the old was really magic heavy. In the very last Wurld Tournament for HackMaster 4th Edition the Gawds were destroyed as well as all magic and allegedly the whole planet. I just advanced the timeline something like 10,000 years and the planet wasn't destroyed, but the loss of magic changed most everything. In the new campaign magic was slowly coming back into the world as new Gods were reaching out. The thing is, for most people magic wasn't even a fairy tale.

Anyway, enough supposition. This was a serious game and since I was playing with adults there were some adult themes and stuff I'm probably never going to type about and normally would NEVER condone in a RPG game, well at least a public one.

The players weren't quite the normal murderhobos, having established themselves as competent "troubleshooters" for their village. They've proven themselves capable a few times already and when a badly injured rider came into town with reports he was tracking an band of orcs.....well the party was going to go investigate. Orc raids were a seasonal problem and it was a little too early in the year, but the village elders activated the militia (conscription was a thing) and asked the party to investigate...tomorrow. The party was already wiped from the day's activities and needed to rest and get some suicide daggers from the blacksmith before heading out.

Remember those adult themes? Well Orcs in HackMaster were really a bastardized race that procreates pretty much through rape. It's pretty messed up, but it was a known thing (not something I made up!!!) and the party were all females, and were warned in-character.

Anyway, the party got up 1st thing in morning to head off where the orcs were last seen and then found out that one of the PC's parents, a retired Knight, had headed out the day before with some militia, specifically because he didn't want his daughter facing orcs, even though it was against the Elder's wishes (rank has its privileges...)

The party rushes to catch up and while the earlier group has a good 14 hour lead, they are able to make good time since they were able to easily follow the slower group's track once they went off-road. The party catches up just as the battle is underway and the battle is not going that well. The party manages to turn the tide and it is clear that the orcs are going to lose, but not before the Half-Orc leader, unbeknownst to anybody is a Cleric. The Cleric's final parting gift was a Cause Wounds spell, which was enough to bring the Knight down to zero hit points.

This Cleric got away and there is some more big back story, but basically this was the introduction of what was to be a recurring villain in this campaign. The secret that magic was back in the world and true clerics existed was a HUGE deal. The players already knew there was magic, hell, they technically had a magic user in the group, but seeing clerical magic....evidence of the new Gods, was big. I'm doing my best here to solemnize the significance and let the implication wash over the players, like I'm some bad-ass world-building story teller or shit......

......and then one of my players snickers and says that the orc did a "bad touch" on the other PC's father. A little laughter and before I know it this new BBG (Big Bad Guy) has been labeled "Pedo-Orc" Great.....he has a name now....

I ended up making a graphic for the bastard, for shits & giggles, since I was documenting the campaign in a blog.

This....this is the kind of thing I mean about players interjecting humor into your serious campaign. You can't fight it, you just have to deal with it. In the end, we're all just doing this to have fun, right?

A Little Bit About the 1st OSR Game....

Still not Erik.

When you've got an audience who presumably likes the same things you do, and you want to share something that might be a shared interest....what do you do? In my case I think I'll try to share some things that might not be known to the audience.

In this case I think the Tavern might like to hear a little bit about the OSR, specifically the 1st OSR game....which is probably not what you think it is. Wikipedia talks about the "Old School Revival" starting with the OGL in 2000, and I'm going to call BS on that. Let's look at the dates of some early OSR games:

Labyrinth Lord - 2007

OSRIC - 2006

Swords & Wizardry - 2008

Yeah....well HackMaster beats all of them by more than half a decade! Yeah, I'm calling HackMaster the 1st OSR game. Hear me out. HackMaster wasn't published by TSR/WotC/Hasbro and it doesn't use the OGL.

 I know that too many see HackMaster as a "joke" game and definitely don't see it as an OSR game, which is a shame. Yes, there is a decent bit of parody elements written into the game, but like any game, the real comedy doesn't come from the game.....it comes from the gamers. Murderhobos doing KTATTS generally don't differentiate between systems!

If I haven't lost you yet, hear me out. Now I played HackMaster 4th edition and did transition to the new edition and I should have a clue what I'm talking about as I was a volunteer for a number of years for KenzerCo. I should be a level 5 GM, but I never bothered to apply because by the time I qualified I no longer cared.

Level 5 GM? What? Yeah, well HackMaster was a product of its time and to say it was crunchy was an understatement. At it's core HackMaster 4th Edition (as in it was the 4th edition of D&D.....that was part of the joke, but really what most players thought of it) was about 50% 1st Edition AD&D, 25% 2nd Edition, and 25% home rules. 

Think of it like this. You're in a home group that has been playing D&D for a couple decades. You're all brainy types.....a lawyer and a bunch of engineers and you have an opportunity to print your home game rules for others to play.

In short this is what happened. Wikipedia hits some of the high notes and hopefully I can fill in a few blanks I've learned 1st hand from the D-Team themselves (what we call the KenzerCo folks). Hopefully it'll be obvious where I'm expressing opinion.....that bit about percentages, technically an opinion, but not mine. David Kenzer told me that personally.

Speaking of David Kenzer, HackMaster really exists because of him, even though originally it was just a generic name of a game being played in Jolly Blackburn's Knights of the Dinner Table (KoDT) comic. I'm also not discounting the many contributions to the game from the rest of the D-Team, KenzerCo staff, and other contributors (I've written a game rule or two that got published through the HackJournal).....but I digress.

My introduction to Kenzer was at a con where some rabid fanboy had him cornered and was trying to explain how a particular rule worked despite the fact he was a) wrong, and b) speaking to the guy who literally wrote the rule. Kenzer's response was epic and I wish I could remember the fine details, but he basically told the dork he was wrong because he wrote that rule, and that it was literally his game and if he wanted to make a rule stating that this nerd got a permanent -1 to all his dice rolls in a HackMaster game then it would be so. Don't get me wrong, Mr. Kenzer was not being impolite to the guy, but he was kind of being a bit of a dick.....and believe me when I say that won me over instantly. He's actually a great guy, just doesn't suffer idiocy well because he doesn't have to.....

OK anyway a super important thing to know is that Mr Kenzer is a lawyer and not just any lawyer, but an intellectual property lawyer. KenzerCo was doing their thing and Jolly Blackburn was transitioning from publishing Shadis to breaking out KoDT to it's own comic. He put out three issues before a problem occurred: the printer totally screwed up the printing of issue #4. IIRC there aren't too many issues of the messed up copies out there, but I have one and it is unreadable as it looks like the font was substituted with some knock-off win-dings font. A disaster of this magnitude is the kind of thing that would put the comic under. Luckily Jolly was able to join KenzerCo and they funded the re-print. Now I'd argue KenzerCo is more known for KoDT than HackMaster, which is a shame since they've had a few other hits...and at least one big miss. 

Now I can't recall the exact timeline, but WotC, just barely pre-Hasbro, released the  Dragon Magazine archive in PDF form.....and they didn't have the rights to reprint the KoDT strips. Just a head's up, probably not a good idea to violate the intellectual property rights of a small company headed by a well-known intellectual property lawyer! Eventually WotC was rolled into Hasbro and plans were well underway for D&D version 3.0. 

The way I heard it, the powers that be figured nobody would care so much about 1st & 2nd Edition once 3rd Edition came out, so settling a guaranteed loss in court for rules nobody will miss....seemed like an easy choice for Hasbro. KenzerCo went from maybe having a different publisher make a game for them to having the rights to print their home game. I'm sure Hasbro wasn't too pleased when HackMaster won Game of the Year at Origins, and the game ran strong until the rights/terms of the settlement expired. We had some great tournaments at the big cons, smaller cons, but I'd say the game was a bigger hit with countless home groups that had been playing 1st/2nd Edition in someone's basement for a couple decades. I've lost count how many people told me they loved/played HackMaster with their home group, but would never consider coming to a con to play (which is a shame).

If you like playing 1st Edition you really should see if you can get your hands on 4th Edition HackMaster, especially some of the supplements. The Goods & Gear, the Spellslinger's Guide to Wurld Domination, all of the Hacklopedia of Beasts...all good stuff. Just drop anything that sees too silly, but take a second look 'cause under the right situation even the stupid stuff might work. KenzerCo cannot sell most of the line anymore, but you can still find it out in the wild if you keep your eyes open. I was in a random hobby shop outside of Ft Bragg last December and found a full set of Hacklopedia of Beasts at a good price.....too bad I've had several sets, but down to one now.

OSR Black Friday Sales - Part The Third - Trolls and Hacks and More

Its ACTUALLY Black Friday now. Let's see what sales have been added to the mix. Prior posts are here and here.

KenzerCo

Kenzerco's 2018 Hack Friday [CyB3rMonday] Sale

Thanks for checking out our annual mega-sale. There's values across the board with a majority of products 50% off for the shopping holiday weekend (Friday through Monday).

All orders of $50 (in merchandise) will receive a free copy of a Bundle of Trouble. $100 orders will get two. (The specific volume is determined by stock on hand.)

Note that this page has special product listings we prepared especially for you (below) that exceed even these savings! Other highlights follow:

• We've added discounted media mail shipping options for hardcover books
• "Classic" print editions of KoDT are 80% off
• Previous edition Aces & Eights products are 80% off
• All Casualty Counters are 75% off. These very kewl fallen battle figures make a great stocking stuffer for the gamer in your life.
• HackMaster bundle/shipping specials are an awesome value if you want to pick up multiple core books

Troll Lord Games

Stacking "percent off" doesn't usually add up as well as you think it might but by my math, $20 to $50 becomes 46% off and over $50 becomes 52% off. Still HUGE discounts at The Trolls.

Jeff Talanian

Time for some Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerors of Hyperborea fun :)

Pacesetter Games & Simulations

OSR adventures and minis are the Pacesetter specialty.

35% off sitewide with coupon code: Black18

The Tavern Chat Podcast - Episode 49 - The Beginning of the OSR - A Look Back

Thanks to this post at the Multiverse blog: http://multiverse.world/blog/2018/07/02/what-is-the-osr-old-school-revival/ (well worth the reading( I've been inspired to do a series of podcast episodes covering various OSR ruleset. In the first episode of the series, I look at the beginning of the OSR.

The first in what will become an (ir)regular series of episodes. Hackmaster 4e to Castles & Crusades to OSRIC to Labyrinth Lord and finally to Swords & Wizardry, its the birth of the OSR.

Link to Episode #49 - https://anchor.fm/tavernchat/episodes/Episode-49---The-Beginning-of-the-OSR---A-Look-Back-e1of91

Mini Review - HackMaster Basic "Plus"

Do you remember when the new HackMaster Basic came out? They stripped out the over the top funny from the old HackMaster and were working on a new game. The original HackMaster Basic  (I bought a bunch of copies of the paperback at $5 a pop) covered levels 1-5. The New HackMaster Basic Plus covers from levels 1-10. Thinking back on the vast majority of D&D campaigns of run over the years, this would have covered all but two of them.

I would gladly play in a HackMaster campaign, but there is now way I could ever run one. It feels to rules heavy for me to be comfortable running with minimal referring to the rules, and that for me is a deal breaker. Maybe if I had 6 months of steady gaming of the system weekly as a player - but the odds of that happening for me are minuscule to nil. I just don't have the time.

For those willing to put the time into the system, the customization of the PCs is damn near amazing. I'd probably need a spread sheet to follow along, but that's why we have computers. The crunch I'm willing to deal with in a system is much greater when I'm not running the system ;)

Interesting - Giant Rats don't get the HP kicker that most monsters do in HMBP. They get abuse in every system.

I may just have to steal borrow the disease section for my own AD&D campaign. You know there have to be some kicking diseases in Rappan Athuk ;)

The HackMaster Basic Plus PDF is $9.99. The HackMaster Player's Handbook is $39.99 for the PDF. I suspect you can get a lot of mileage out of that $9.99 PDF, as it includes both the Player's and GM sections for levels 1-10.

From the blurb:


HackMaster Basic was released with the presumption that players wanted to learn the game – not the character generation system. As such, this version includes a selection of ready-to-play characters to facilitate rapid play.

Let’s face it. Learning how to build a character in any system takes some trial and error. You really have to play the game to know how to build a Player Character.

If you’ve played HackMaster and enjoy the game, HackMaster Basic Plus is the perfect step up. Here’s some of the added features:

• Character Generation
• Full details for advancing up to 10th level
• Extra Equipment choices
• More Spells
• More Skills
• Expanded Combat Options
• 12 Special Combat Moves
• Crunchier Initiative System
• PCs can survive past zero hit points
• Rules for Shooting into Melee

For the GameMaster
• Expanded Treasure Tables
• Disease Rules

227 page PDF

Characters in HackMaster Basic and HackMaster Basic Plus are fully interchageable and can be readily integrated into the grestly expanded rules system featured in the HackMaster Players Handbook.

Of Felt and Men

I'm going to be collecting some of the best bits n' pieces of the Name the Nameless Dragon Campaign and putting them in a single blog post. There is some killer stuff that was posted for it and I still laugh thinking about it.

I don't call the Feltothraxis vids "reviews", as he doesn't so much review as remark. Unless, of course, I have a real dog for him to talk about. I'm sure that would count as a review by the time he is finished ;)

Now, on to Hackmaster. I never realized how loyal (if small) a following the game had until I reviewed The Dusk of the Dead. Apparently, I should have used my trained investigator skills to track down the missing rules for characters above fifth level. I stopped after checking the Kenzerco website and finding the Hackmaster Basic Rules as the only rules listed under Hackmaster Core section. Next time I'll make sure to cast ESP on my Crystal Ball and read Kenzerco's collective mindset.

In all seriousness, the least they could do is make a reference as to where you can find and BUY the relevant rules, either on the web page with the Core Rules or in the Dusk of the Dead adventure itself.

Heck, it's not like the rules are needed to run the adventure, but since Mr. Kenzer made reference to them by including them in the suggested PC level range, it would have been a nice gesture (and probably a good business decision) to point the reader in the right direction.

I mean, reading the adventure got me thinking about possibly using the HM Basic rules (which is a damn good job, as they are a bit more convoluted then I normally look to use these days).