As I meander through the plethora of RPGs in this the golden age of gaming I bump into whole genres and philosophies, re-arrange the furniture as I blunder, and amble on. So it is with the Old School Renaissance, reinventing and rediscovering the joys of early D&D with light, elegant re-interpretations that preserve the free flowing and mechanically straightforward systems. I have been aware, but ignored, as I’ve left D&D behind these days, though happy to play, and saw little need to explore this movement.
Bump!
I’ve arrived into a vibrant community of bubbling creativity, how could I not be enamoured and entranced? My first delvings have brought me to The Black Hack, an incredible 19 pages of solid gaming goodness. Outstanding. Pared to the essential bones and summoned from the earth to wreak gaming havoc on tables across the kingdoms, The Black Hack has everything you need to get started for fantasy adventures with four classes, two blocks of spells, a simple roll under your familiar six stats on d20, ten levels and damage dished out by monsties based on their HD.
Of course hacking the Hack is not only allowed, but encouraged. Mine is going to include ‘Race selection’ providing a bonus to one stat, a bonus to one type of saving throw, and some colour abilities that should provide ‘advantage’ (roll 2d20 and pick the best result). I’ll also be looking at introducing some more spell lists, though this dude looks to be considering this too. His additional classes will see some use at my table, though I’d have liked some revised spell lists to go with the spellcaster classes.
This is going to be the game that I use for my 10 year old youngling and his group of mates…
I also have The Front, a WW2 hack of The Black Hack. This game has all sorts of potential, especially when the 2nd edition comes out with more explanations and a tidied up vehicle and aircraft system. I shall await to see how it looks and report back from The Front…
To complete this most recent binge, I have ordered, through Lulu, Whitehack. What is it with Sweden? I just got eternally co-joined with Symbaroum in a blasphemous ceremony, and now this. I’ll compare and contrast and potentially blend. Perhaps we will have a Gray Hack before you know it…
Well, that was all a bit of a surprise.