Quote from: ColonelHardisson;333763Will this shield be anything like the HM4e shield? Or will it be more traditional?

We will certainly try to deliver.

With no need for to-hit/ac tables we'll definitely be thinking outside the box to come up with some new ideas for the shield.

Quote from: brettmb;333621Mark, let me ask you another question. Clearly, you have the resources to produce a full color book, since you did that with Aces & Eights. Yet Hackmaster is sort of poised against D&D, which is full color, but you didn't go that route. Do you plan on doing the Advanced book as full-color, or are you simply aiming for a lower price point as opposed to flash?

Our goal with HackMaster Basic was do to something affordable that more people would be likely to pick up. Seems to have worked.

Advanced HackMaster will be a different animal however.

We'll be out to make an impression. Something on the level of the Aces and Eights premium/leathered edition only ramped up.

We've been tossing around some ideas in house on the new books. If we can pull off the technical aspects they should be pretty amazing. So yes -- plenty of flash with AHM. Coupled with the best content we can muster of course.

Quote from: JollyRB;333869Our goal with HackMaster Basic was do to something affordable that more people would be likely to pick up. Seems to have worked.

I applaud that, because I'd much rather have Hackmaster Basic than the D&D Starter Set even though both are the same price and the latter is full-color.

That's my goal with PDFs (and print to order by extension). Make them affordable. Of course a deluxe version is always good too

For any basic game, price should definitely be a major concern.

RPGPundit

So I picked up the book yesterday. It' pretty cool.  Better than I though.  The combat rules seem more interesting than AD&D, and yet they don't go the route of later editions and ad shit that normal human beings can't do.  Like phase shift and walk through walls just because you take a feat/power in it.  That kinda bullshit.  Just giving it a quick read, I like the mage spell casting system a lot.  My only concern would be the limited number of spells a mage can actually know.  Even the old AD&D game let you "know" far more than the numbers in HBM.  Assuming the advanced version will have more spells, hat god is a list of 40 1st level spells when you can only know 4 of them?  Why kill other wizards and loot their spellbooks when you are already full of the spells per level you can know?

I haven't gotten into the rest of it in too much depth, maybe there is more to it than my before bed reading last night that I am missing.  Just a preliminary review...

I just got a copy of HackMaster Basic yesterday. I haven't been able to sit down and read through it all yet, but from just initially thumbing through it I really like what I see. Would have preferred an Elmore cover to the Otus though.

I also can see that I'm probably going to want to run out and pick up Advanced HackMaster as soon as it gets released. As long as the Advanced books are reasonably priced and not diamond encrusted or something, I can see this becoming my new fantasy game of choice.

Quote from: KillingMachine;337459I just got a copy of HackMaster Basic yesterday. I haven't been able to sit down and read through it all yet, but from just initially thumbing through it I really like what I see. Would have preferred an Elmore cover to the Otus though.

I also can see that I'm probably going to want to run out and pick up Advanced HackMaster as soon as it gets released. As long as the Advanced books are reasonably priced and not diamond encrusted or something, I can see this becoming my new fantasy game of choice.

If I could get my group to adopt it, I would gladly make this the game we play every week rather than our bastardized retro'd 3.0 game.

Quote from: Joethelawyer;337462If I could get my group to adopt it, I would gladly make this the game we play every week rather than our bastardized retro'd 3.0 game.

Why not bring your HackMaster Basic book to a game and show them some of the stuff it can offer? If you guys are trying to retro up your current game anyway, it might appeal to them.

My recommendation, make up some pregens, base them off of your Player's likes/dislikes, i.e. make up characters that you know that they'd be interested in. Then run a "Demo" for them. If there's a local Convention or Game Day or just a store that will allow you to run a Demo, then get at least a couple of people from your group to play it. Once you get a couple interested they'll help you spread the word. Or just ask your group to "take a break" for one night and run the Demo there. Go download "White Palette/Ivory Thorns" from K&Co and run it. Give them a taste without having to read the rules or make up characters.

I really like HMB, but I'm currently playing in a 3.5 D&D game that is killing my want of any game that takes a lot of time to do combats.  I still think HMB is better than d20, but I'm not sure I want a game that's so fiddly.

I have to say that HMB is pretty much the only new game that I'm very curious to check out sometime soon (I'm also interested in checking out 'Dragon Warriors,' but that's not really a new game).

Quote from: KillingMachine;337459Would have preferred an Elmore cover to the Otus though.

UGH! NONONONONO!  Thank kind Cthulhu it's Otus!

I can't wait for Advanced Hackmaster to add even more options to the mix.

Quote from: Akrasia;337683UGH! NONONONONO!  Thank kind Cthulhu it's Otus!

Yup. I have to admit that had it been an Elmore cover, I'd have been much less inclined to buy it. I'd most likely have given it a pass and waited to see what Advanced looks like.

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;337726Yup. I have to admit that had it been an Elmore cover, I'd have been much less inclined to buy it. I'd most likely have given it a pass and waited to see what Advanced looks like.

Wow, you'd really judge a book by its cover? I'm not that crazy about the Otus cover, but it in no way made me think "I don't particularly like the cover, so the book must suck". With any RPG book there is bound to be art you'll love and art you won't be as excited about. If some of the stuff I'm not digging as much happens to be on the cover, that isn't a deal breaker.

Speaking of the artwork though, I do really like a lot of the interior art in HMB.

One thing that's kinda bugging me about the game though. It's sort of a nitpick, but why did they decide to make the main currency silver pieces and then call the magic points "spell points" so that they are both abbreviated as "SP"? Not a huge deal, but it would have been nice to not have two commonly used things abbreviated with the same letters.

Quote from: Akrasia;337683I have to say that HMB is pretty much the only new game that I'm very curious to check out sometime soon (I'm also interested in checking out 'Dragon Warriors,' but that's not really a new game).

Dragon warriors in a nutshell:

Roll to hit, roll to penetrate the armor. No damage roll. Low HP. Lots of 1st-gen style special-case rules.

Current edition is a consolidation reprint, rather than a truly new edition.

PDF is a good read, but as typical of Mongoose, rather high on the relative price.