I purchased a copy of Hackmaster Basic for a friend, since he likes Hackmaster and is interested in running a game.
I take gaming quite a bit more seriously than most of my group. I prefer a tone a bit more like Star Wars: A New Hope or Indiana Jones over things like Spaceballs--not that the latter isn't fun to watch, its just not my aim in gaming. My players routinely ask me to run stuff, so I hope that means I make such a tone appealing.
I got to flip through the book, and found some things problematic--we figured out one (what the little p means for example.) But other than rules questions; What is the appeal? Does the new game live up to that appeal? Is it too over the top in its humor? Is it just right for typical D&D gaming? How about on par with Tunnels & Trolls?
How does honor come up in play? What is the purpose of it? How smoothly does it play with occasionally and limited exploding dice?
Quote from: Silverlion;314392What is the appeal?
The appeal to me is a D&D-type game that finally gets it right IMHO. It pays attention to simulation and still manages to play quickly. Oh, and it helps that I'm a big fan of KoDT.
Quote from: Silverlion;314392Does the new game live up to that appeal?
Yes, mostly. There are a few nitpicky things I'd have rather seen done differently in the basic book, but for the most part it's better than I what I expected.
Quote from: Silverlion;314392Is it too over the top in its humor?
No, I don't think so. In fact I think they went too far in toning down the humor. I hope they increase it a bit for the advanced books.
Quote from: Silverlion;314392Is it just right for typical D&D gaming?
I ran playtest sessions last year and it felt pretty much like our normal D&D games - except that combats were much, much better.
Quote from: Silverlion;314392How about on par with Tunnels & Trolls?
T&T is a far lighter game than HM. Of course T&T is pretty much lighter than anything other than Risus.
Quote from: Silverlion;314392How does honor come up in play? What is the purpose of it?
Honor is one thing we didn't play with in playtests as at the time we didn't have detailed rules for it yet. Basically it's just another tool for getting people to play in character. It also provide a mechanic to prevent your pc from dying by using honor points much like fate points in WFRP.
Quote from: Silverlion;314392How smoothly does it play with occasionally and limited exploding dice?
This is really one of the best aspects of HM. Since you usually roll more than one die for damage, exploding dice happen quite often which makes for furious and tense combats. Critical hits, misses, and perfect defenses also add a lot of fun to fights.
The "p" indicates a die roll that penetrates. If you roll the maxium result on that die you roll it again and add the result (-1). If you roll the max again repeat.
Makes a Battle Axe with 4d4 damage a wicked weapon.
Quote from: JollyRB;314466The "p" indicates a die roll that penetrates. If you roll the maxium result on that die you roll it again and add the result (-1). If you roll the max again repeat.
Makes a Battle Axe with 4d4 damage a wicked weapon.
Yeah, we figured that one out :D
Best advice, if you have questions on the Game Rules, come on over to the Kenzer Boards. There's plenty of us over there that have played it(especially Playtesters) that can answer questions quickly. There's also several threads of questions already asked/answered. Plus, Dave and Jolly, and sometimes Steve and MarkP answer things quicker over there.
And yes, I'm quite happy with Combat. No checking Combat Charts, it flows very, very quickly. I ran a combat between 6 PCs and 6 Orcs in about 11 or 12 minutes last game session.
If you choose to ignore the silly aspects you can play the game as seriously as you could B/E D&D.
RPGPundit
I was rather confused by the combat example. It seemed as if the enemies got to move on every tick of the combat order, but the players only got to to anything on their first initiative, and then at weapon speed intervals.
That seemed, well, a bit out of whack to me. But maybe I misunderstood something.
That is an example of an Ambush. Basically, the Goblins were hidden and waiting to attack. Since the Characters didn't know that they were there the Encounter started when the Goblins rushed out, so therefore the Goblins started acting on "1". The PCs, since they didn't know the Goblins were there had to roll a standard Init, d12. In that situation the Characters were basically surprised and had to wait until their Init came up to act. After that you notice that the Characters were moving every second.
Now, if the encounter was setup so that the Goblins weren't ready for an ambush, and just walked up on the characters, then Both Sides would have had to roll a d12 for Init.
Quote from: J Arcane;314798I was rather confused by the combat example. It seemed as if the enemies got to move on every tick of the combat order, but the players only got to to anything on their first initiative, and then at weapon speed intervals.
That seemed, well, a bit out of whack to me. But maybe I misunderstood something.
When you move you get to move a little each tick. But when you swing or do other actions then you don't get to do anything else until a number of tick pass equal to the speed of the activity.
Quote from: RPGPundit;314796If you choose to ignore the silly aspects you can play the game as seriously as you could B/E D&D.
RPGPundit
Other than the dice chapter (which has nothing to do with real play and can be completely ignored), there really aren't any silly aspects to HMb. There are some funny lines in the rules, but no silly rules. There aren't any silly monsters or spells either.
Quote from: mhensley;314840Other than the dice chapter (which has nothing to do with real play and can be completely ignored), there really aren't any silly aspects to HMb. There are some funny lines in the rules, but no silly rules. There aren't any silly monsters or spells either.
Some of the disadvantages are silly "ish" but I'm not sure that is a real problem. After all, even the most stoic gamers crack jokes in play, often out of character.
Quote from: Silverlion;314851Some of the disadvantages are silly "ish" but I'm not sure that is a real problem.
Yeah I guess I can see that. But it's very straight in comparison to the disadvantages you'd get in the old HM.
We started making characters tonight.
It seems problematic to me that you "Roll stats, that give you build points, then can spend those same points to up those same stats."
Skills are off in the design--I like them in a game, but these seem arbitrarily designed and complicated for no good return. A flat percentage +% per build points would have made more sense. Ah well, the skills actually caused said friend to quit making his PC at that point. It was just too much complexity for the long day he'd had.
I guess some people like arbitrary randomness and added complexity. I like to try out games of all sorts, but I doubt this will make much headway with my group if it has much more of this kind of complexity. They've played Hackmaster 4, I have not for the record.
Of course I suspect my PC will not live long even if we do get to playing. (I hope so, I do want to try my Elf Wizard out, he's too pretty to just wallow in character creation.)
The Stats don't "Give you Build Points" and spending too many BPs on stats is a good way of wasting BPs.
Die rolls for skills are there because otherwise every character would learn the same percent, every time. Much better, IMO, to have it individualized. It's really not that hard, you pay for a skill, you roll a die, add any modifiers, write it down.
Quote from: greylond;315039The Stats don't "Give you Build Points" and spending too many BPs on stats is a good way of wasting BPs.
Die rolls for skills are there because otherwise every character would learn the same percent, every time. Much better, IMO, to have it individualized. It's really not that hard, you pay for a skill, you roll a die, add any modifiers, write it down.
Can you do my tax returns next year?
Quote from: greylond;315039The Stats don't "Give you Build Points"
Yes they do. High Int, Wis, and Char, give you a few bonus BP that can only be used on skills based on those abilities. They're not general purpose BP but that's splitting hairs as more points for skills makes it easy to spend BP elsewhere.
Quote from: JollyRB;315047Can you do my tax returns next year?
Nah, check with Bean_Counter. I let him do all my gaming maths...
Quote from: Nicephorus;315053Yes they do. High Int, Wis, and Char, give you a few bonus BP that can only be used on skills based on those abilities. They're not general purpose BP but that's splitting hairs as more points for skills makes it easy to spend BP elsewhere.
Yes, you are splitting hairs. He said that they give you BPs that can then be spent on your Stats;
Quote from: Silverlion;314931It seems problematic to me that you "Roll stats, that give you build points, then can spend those same points to up those same stats."
Which is clearly what I was addressing...
The cost of raising attributes by build points makes it fairly restrictive; I think that its pretty well-regulated. You can't really use the build points to make an uber-character; and spending a lot of build points on stats means you'll be reduced in your potential for anything else. There are better ways to spend your points.
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;315142The cost of raising attributes by build points makes it fairly restrictive; I think that its pretty well-regulated. You can't really use the build points to make an uber-character; and spending a lot of build points on stats means you'll be reduced in your potential for anything else. There are better ways to spend your points.
RPGPundit
I'm sure there are. I don't have a lack of them for my Elf at the moment (even after upping my 9:something strength to 10:something...)
The skill system, seems terrible in its design though. I think its "too much double dipping" of values for me. I'd rather have simplicity and let people buy high skills if they want them (or not) than this random stuff (at least for skill.)
Admittedly, I may not be the games intended audience. My friends in this case
are the intended audience. If they stop at character creation, something has gone awry.
Then just use the quick start rules for creating characters. It takes 10-15 minutes tops.
BTW nice little fan-produced character generation aid here: http://www.kenzerco.com/forums/showthread.php?t=43925
So I thought I'd share a few things now that we've played a single session:
Primarily there were some complaints about the complexity of tracking initiative, and in general the many numbers on the PC sheets to track. Especially notable were the complaints about Hit Points from our primary human warrior...since he rolled max, and wouldn't enjoy much benefit from "rerolls"
We started on the free module my friend downloaded to test out the system. (Off to save "lead paint..?")
Anyway here is my PC: Ehldaimon the the Dashing
(http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/936/ehldaimonsmall.th.jpg) (http://img268.imageshack.us/i/ehldaimonsmall.jpg/)
Neutral Good, Elf, Mage, Level 1
Str: 10/07 Int 18/53 Wis: 17/51 Dex 17/64 Con 11/71 Lks 19/66 Cha 19/20
Honor: 21 HP: 16
Spells (Prepared) Firefinger, Aura of Protection, Deep Sleep
Proficiencies: Shield, Spear, Staff, Shield
Talents: Parry Bonus +2, Swift Blade +1, Attack Bonus +1, Damage Bonus +2
Skills: Cartagraphy 46, Diplomacy 64, Distraction 80, Glean Info 38, Hiding 24, Listening 41, Observation 55, Resist Persuasion 64, Sneaking 36, Arcane Lore 56, Animal Empathy 45, Monster Lore 42
(I noticed that a lot of advantages exist for a warrior beyond their base abilities, but little for Mages. I hope the Advanced book remedies this in part.)
I'll note that the vast majority of us used the default rolling system. Only one player needed some rerolls (because of stats way below Hackmasters standard bottom out limit.)
Our other Pc's were a Halfling Cleric named Cora, a human cleric, whose name I forgot (houseruled to be underaged: 12), a human warrior named Nathaniel, and a Dwarf Warrior named Ray.
At first combat might seem complicated but after 2 or 3 sessions it starts to flow.
Anything you want to ask about?
Quote from: greylond;319795At first combat might seem complicated but after 2 or 3 sessions it starts to flow.
Anything you want to ask about?
Not from me, maybe I'll send my Gm over here and see what he thinks.
Send him over to the K&Co forums and he'll get faster answers, and from more people than just me. After GenCon the K&Co Crew will be back online and answering questions themselves...
I think the new initiative/count system flows pretty well. As a GM, I like to keep a running list of each count, a jot down a brief note of who does what on each count (for the NPCs), followed by when they act next. This helps me keep track of things.
All in all I really like the game. It has that old school feel to it but it isn't a retro clone, it's got a whole new system built from the ground up, and it has lots of familiar bits to it that most people should gel with right away.