Hi,
Contemplating a new campaign made up of Old-Schoolers who haven't played in years. Thought about B4, X1, Castle Whiterock. Looked through Hackmasters LKoTB and thought it was pretty cool from the perspctive of it being similar to B4 and have more detail (for time-crunched me). Although I'm not sure coverting it to 3e would be easy/worth-the-time.
Any thoughts?
What about running it with Hackmaster? Is Hackmaster easier to run the 3.5?
Just some questions rolling around in my noggin...
Thanks,
Rich
Ha, another sucker benefitting from the big sale at Kenzerco? :D
I got Little Keep on the Borderlands too. I think it depends on how crunchily you run your games. What the module gives you is locations, NPCs, maps and pictures to show the players. I think that is a ton of useful material. I'd probably run it in Savage Worlds myself.
So not a helpful answer, just shouting out to say that I appreciate the module (especially for 3.99!).
Sorry I can't speak directly to Little Keep, but I have run the original using 3.5. It was a very straightfoward conversion, since almost everything in the adventure had been upgraded to the 3.x rules already.
The only change I made was with the hermit. I made him an outcast orc seer instead, but that was done mostly because I was running campaign with psionics instead of magic, not because I couldn't have statted him up as presented.
Hackmaster has a lot of oddball monsters whose stats I've never seen though (since I'm a player only). If Little Keep has a ton of those in it, you're probably better served replacing them when converting instead of trying to update their stats.
The one bit of advice I can give is to ignore CR and EL except at experience point time. Old School didn't care about those sorts of artifical trappings for fairness's sake, and neither should a conversion of an old school adventure.
Quote from: walkerpHa, another sucker benefitting from the big sale at Kenzerco? :D
I got Little Keep on the Borderlands too. I think it depends on how crunchily you run your games. What the module gives you is locations, NPCs, maps and pictures to show the players. I think that is a ton of useful material. I'd probably run it in Savage Worlds myself.
So not a helpful answer, just shouting out to say that I appreciate the module (especially for 3.99!).
Yeah,
I kinda ended up at kenzerco and saw that it was on sale...that triggered my..."I wonder if..." switch.
Anyone have any comments on the usability of (or reviews of) the other Hackmaster classics re-dos? Do the modules assume a party of 6 or more?
I've played through parts of Quest/Search for the Unknown. It was fun, with some old school random magic pools tossed in for good measure.
Overall I really dig Hackmaster, but the fights tend to drag on longer than is normal for (A) D&D. The reason is the 20+ hit point kicker that every monster and PC gets. It means that even goblins take forever to kill, and you have to get really lucky to kill something in a single shot.It also means that solitary big monsters, like the Trash Ogre we fought, are much easier to beat than hordes of little guys.
Quote from: James McMurrayOverall I really dig Hackmaster, but the fights tend to drag on longer than is normal for (A) D&D. The reason is the 20+ hit point kicker that every monster and PC gets.
Werd. We actually ditched the kicker for monsters and kept it only for the PCs and major villains. It sped things up drastically.
@RCSample:
Little Keep can be run using 3.5 with only a little alterations. I mean, they have mostly the same monsters and classes, similar magic items and a common source: AD&D. But yes, those alterations might be time consuming since you'll need to convert NPCs and certain monster villains to 3.5 class/race levels complete with all the feats that come with 'em.
You might be better off just running it with Hackmaster. Hackmaster isn't too hard to shave off rules you think are too burdensome, too. We pretty much run it as AD&D with more classes, races and honor/fame. The only problem is finding enough PHBs since it's out of print.
-=Grim=-
Quote from: GrimJestaWerd. We actually ditched the kicker for monsters and kept it only for the PCs and major villains. It sped things up drastically.
@RCSample:
But yes, those alterations might be time consuming since you'll need to convert NPCs and certain monster villains to 3.5 class/race levels complete with all the feats that come with 'em.
You might be better off just running it with Hackmaster. Hackmaster isn't too hard to shave off rules you think are too burdensome, too.
-=Grim=-
Hmm...assuming some familiarity of AD&D as a player many moons ago, would it be harder to start GMing Hackmaster or D&D3E for: combats? statting up villians/monsters?
I just think, with a bunch of old-school hack-n-slashers, it may end up like Hackmaster no matter which way I go. Which is fine by me, I just want the least amount of prepwork/downtime that I can find.
Thanks everyone for the comments,
Rich
Quote from: rcsampleI just think, with a bunch of old-school hack-n-slashers, it may end up like Hackmaster no matter which way I go. Which is fine by me, I just want the least amount of prepwork/downtime that I can find.
If you want to take your time with this, stretch it out, than I'd say go with Hackmaster. The fun of the game is the detailed character development and all the stuff with reputation and honour.
But if you just want to do a rocking hack and slash dungeon crawl, I'd rip all the guts out and do it with Savage Worlds. $10 for the book and your prep time is decimated (in the literal sense, at least a tenth of the time).
I don't know if it's your sentence construction, but 'decimation' was to reduce by a tenth, not to a tenth.
Quote from: droogI don't know if it's your sentence construction, but 'decimation' was to reduce by a tenth, not to a tenth.
Well I'll admit it was an awkward sentence. My OED gives both meanings (I think). It says 1. put to death one in ten (of mutinous or cowardly soldiers). 2. (Of epidemic etc.) destroy tenth or large proportion or (D) nine-tenths of.
I mean 1 in 10, that doesn't seem so bad.
Hey, I've got the same dictionary. The D means a disputed usage.
But I'll shut up with my historical pedantry now. Keep on the Borderlands was my own introduction to RPGs in 1980.
To the original poster:
Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but if your players are all old-schoolers and if you have more experience with 1E AD&D than with Hackmaster (which is what I inferred from this thread), then why not just run the game in straight, honest-to-God 1st edition AD&D? I mean, unless you're all deliberately going for the comedy aspect of HM, it would be much easier to use Little Keep with 1E (or simply use the original module) than to mess around converting stuff this way and that. It's not like the necessary 1E material is all that difficult to acquire relatively cheap (or even free for the morally uninhibited :P ).
Personally I'd run it HackMaster. I used the sale as a final push to get the HM stuff I've been wanting and am really looking forward to running it. Having read through LKOTBL it's well detailed and really has all the stat info you need on the monsters and stuff right in it so other than the rule books for HM (Players and GM book) not much is needed. It's not all parody as some think, but especially for "old school gamers" who might have played the original back in the day, there are just enough changes and tongue in cheek humourous aspects to make it even more fun than playing the original. At least that's my thoughts on it.
After reading through a number of the HM modules as I prep to run a game, I'm finding the old "hacked" ones quite fun to read from a nostalga sense as well as to see some of the subtle changes which will make it fun for those who remember bits and pieces... :)
I'd missed that the group was made up of previous AD&Ders. In that case I'd suggest using Hackmaster as well. It's really just 1e with some of the good bits of 2e incorporated, and add-ons like exploding damage dice and honor that make it better IMO than either of those other editions.
Quote from: James McMurrayI'd missed that the group was made up of previous AD&Ders. In that case I'd suggest using Hackmaster as well. It's really just 1e with some of the good bits of 2e incorporated, and add-ons like exploding damage dice and honor that make it better IMO than either of those other editions.
I must agree... from what I've seen definitely the same "feel" as those editions with some good add ons.
Quote from: PremierTo the original poster:
Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but if your players are all old-schoolers and if you have more experience with 1E AD&D than with Hackmaster (which is what I inferred from this thread), then why not just run the game in straight, honest-to-God 1st edition AD&D?
Quote from: James McMurrayI'd missed that the group was made up of previous AD&Ders. In that case I'd suggest using Hackmaster as well.
I guess what I'm thinking and not saying/articulating well, is that it's been over 20 years since any of us have played AD&D. So, I'm not sure how much our experience will(or in particular, my experience, since I will probably GM) help in preptime/come-up-to-speed time.
I have the Hackmaster GM/Players guides, paging through them last night, while entertaining, made me slightly glaze over with the amount of tables/rules/etc. contained within. I do like the notion of reputation/honor, I'm a fan of critical hits/like the GM-Player cards....
So, I also have the D&D 3E/3.5E player's handbook, having read through it, it seemed more streamlined for creating characters/running combat. I do enjoy alot of the trappings of 3.5E vs AD&D 1E. No THACO, feats/skills, etc.
I guess what I'm trying to say regarding 3.5E, I'm sort of jonesing to run that, just to give it a spin, and that I've already completed a readthough of it.
I guess I'm weighing running LKotB with 3.5E, with the pro of knowing the system superficially better, but the con of converting monsters/traps, etc. vs. running LKotB with Hackmaster(AD&D1E with some Hackmaster options) where the pro is no conversions and the con is learning/re-learning AD&D 1E with the Hackmaster trappings....
Hopefully clarifies things...
Rich
Well, tough choice. The advantage of running it HM style is less "prep time" for you out of the game... but if you're wanting to do 3.5 then maybe that prep work would be part of the fun.
Personally like like both systems. There are a lot of things in 3.5 that I really like and all, but I also love some of the HM changes.
If you go the HM route I'd really recommend what Grimjesta said earlier and pair down how much HM you use the first time out... just adding it as you want. I'm pretty familiar with 3.5 now and i still get pretty bogged down looking up the rules and figuring out how things work for some of the less common things that came up more than I expected (like grappling).
I think you should look at what would be more fun for you and the group and go with it!
One important thing I forgot to suggest before: ask the players about their preferences.
They might feel that refreshing their knowledge of AD&D is still better than having to learn a completely new system (meaning 3.5E), or they might even consider Hackmaster to be too different. Just a few weeks ago, I started up a small AD&D group with two oldtimer friends, neither of whom ever played anything other than 1E, and even that only 20 years ago. And guess what, nobody had a problem with the rules after the first, I don't know, 15 minutes.
Then there's also the chance that some of them might have had some exposure to either HM or 3.5 (not necessarily actively playing, maybe just reading about it or following online discussions about them), and might have a definitive preference against it. I know I wouldn't touch the latter with a 10 foot pole if they paid me for it.
So, just make sure to ask for their input on the matter - especially since you yourself don't seem to have any strong preferences.
Quote from: rcsampleHmm...assuming some familiarity of AD&D as a player many moons ago, would it be harder to start GMing Hackmaster or D&D3E for: combats? statting up villains/monsters?
If you did the AD&D thing Hackmaster might be easier. I always found 3.x too drastically different from the AD&D system to use older modules: it's a tedious process, this 3.5 thing. At least from the perspective of using an AD&D or Hackmaster module. That's what got me playing Hackmaster to begin with - I missed running the old modules I grew up with, but restatting them for 3.0 was a nightmare. Hackmaster is AD&D with some extra layers of rules you can even ignore if you wanted to.
Combat is less burdensome in HM as well. If you're looking for old-school dungeon-bashing, you really don't want to slow combat down with 5' steps and AoOs. IMHO, that is.
-=Grim=-
What did you find tedious about it? I've run a bunch of (A)D&D modules in 3.x and never had a problem. Pretty much every monster, magic item, and most traps have already been upgraded. Gold flowed more freely in older editions, partly because of its tie to XP, but dividing everything by 10 usually evens that out.
About the only place where things get hairy is with NPCs, and even then you can just use the ones provided in the DMG if you don't want to do a lot of customization.
Quote from: rcsampleContemplating a new campaign made up of Old-Schoolers who haven't played in years. Thought about B4, X1, Castle Whiterock. Looked through Hackmasters LKoTB and thought it was pretty cool from the perspctive of it being similar to B4 and have more detail (for time-crunched me). Although I'm not sure coverting it to 3e would be easy/worth-the-time.
Any thoughts?
My solution was to take the three versions of the Keep module (B2: Keep on the Borderlands, Return to Keep on the Borderlands, and Hackmaster's Little Keep on the Borderlands) and put them into a blender and ran them with 3.5 with some of my own touches because all three had things I liked and things I didn't like.
If you get Little Keep on the Borderlands, be sure to get the free download Beneath the Little Keep (http://www.kenzerco.com/Operiodicals/kodt/Beneath_the_Little_Keep.pdf) from KoDT. It adds some dungeons to the Keep.