RPGPundit Reviews: Hackmaster Basic

Wow! Finally someone releasing a basic book that retails for $20, someone actually taking my advice... now Kenzer will just mass-market this game in an approachable format and... what's that? They're actually going with an Erol Otus cover and marketing it purely to existing gamers as a nostalgia piece?
Aw, fuck me.

Alright, so HM Basic is NOT the basic-game-messiah I've been waiting for. The question apart from that is whether its any good.  Let's take a look.

For starters, there's the Erol Otus cover. Its almost a direct copy of the old Basic D&D box set cover he did years earlier. The art is weird and about 40 years out of date, and clearly serves only a single purpose, to get the "Old School" geeks to buy this game based on the cover alone.  There's nothing really wrong with that, mind you, seeing it certainly shot a strong nostalgic tingle through my spine, but they're pretty much defining their entire market right there.

The format of the book is a softcover, black and white interior, 190 pages. Some of the material is repeated from the 4th edition HM, but most of it is new stuff. And the rules? Well, here's where it gets interesting.

HM Basic's cover is clearly an homage to the old B/E D&D, but its actual rules bear almost no resemblance. They are the basic version of the upcoming 5th edition HM rules.  The 4th Edition of HM was basically AD&D 1e with house rules; 5th edition is required to be considerably different. And what you get with HM Basic is a strange mix of AD&D 1e, the Aces & Eights system (that I recently very admiringly reviewed) with some revisions meant to make the game more sensible for fantasy play, and a few original rules or stuff the Kenzer boys have thought up between writing A&8s and this book.  All of this is packaged in a physical aesthetic, layout and format that is totally B/E Boxed set D&D.

The book does certain things very, very well. Its quick start rules are genius.  The quick start rules that A&8s had were really a set of "simplified" rules, which I didn't care for. The Quickstart rules here in HM Basic are a whole different story: they are the full rules, but streamlined in their choices, so that you can end up making a character in a very short time. By pre-determining most of the skills, and making you roll randomly for the rest and the quirks and flaws, you can make a HM Basic character in under 15 minutes (under 5 once you get used to the system).  This passes my first test of good "basic game" design.

For those of you who don't like this sort of thing, the full character creation rules are provided. I am to understand that these rules are the same, and not a simplified version, of the upcoming 5e Hackmaster rules, only with a smaller selection of options.  In a manner very similar to A&8s, character creation revolves around a combination of rolls and purchases with Building Points. Attributes are rolled randomly, with 3d6 plus d100 for the percentile value; a good additional rule here is the "shopkeeper" rule, where any character with attributes that are too low to be of value gets handed over to the GM to make a shopkeeper with.

In many respects, HM Basic is not a very radical departure from D&D. There are the standard AD&D attributes (including Comeliness), there are classes and races (in the basic game, only the 4 "core" classes and the 4 "core" races are included; and if you don't know what those are by now, you really should be going to some remedial classes or something). Dwarves, elves, halflings and humans are all your standard and predictable stereotypes, and that's a good thing. Ditto for fighters, mages, priests, and thieves.  The big innovation of 4e Hackmaster, "honor" is still very much present in the new edition, too.

One clever idea is that any race can play any class, but purchasing a class costs Building Points.  The BP cost is variable, depending on whether the class is more or less favorable to the race. So humans pay 25 BPs for any class (at least, any of the classes shown here). But a dwarf only needs to pay 20 BP to be a fighter, whereas he'd have to pay a whopping 75 BPs if he wants to be a Mage (initial characters start with only 50 BP, so the Dwarf would have to get extra BP, by being very lucky or making a weaker character, to be able to afford it).

Every character in HM Basic takes a quirk and a flaw. In Aces & Eights, you get extra BPs for having these, but in HM Basic it appears that you do not; fortunately, none of the flaws are quite as awful as some of the A&8s flaws; and you can choose to reroll by spending 1 BP, if you get a flaw you really don't want to play.  Some of the quirks and flaws listed look like they could be highly annoying in actual play. This is the first real reminder I got, reading the actual rules, that HM is supposed to be a comedy-game. Yes, a lot of the art is funny, but thus far the rules were all basically serious. Sample quirks include stuff like "greedy", "nosy" or "paranoid", and sample flaws are things like "stutterer", "hard of hearing" and of course, "flatulence".

Aces & Eights had no "level" system per se. Hackmaster Basic incorporates a level system into the A&8 core to maintain a greater similarity to AD&D.  The HM Basic rules cover the 4 core classes for play from levels 1-5.  I assume that the full rules will eventually go to level 20. Levels are gained by accumulating xp (all classes, in HM Basic at least, use the same xp table), and when you go up in level you receive bonuses as well as 15 more Building Points.  I think this works pretty well.

Mages, it should be noted, gain spells by memorization, but not the same way as in AD&D. Instead you get spell points. Casting a spell you've memorized costs less than casting one that is not memorized. Mage level affects how many spells you can memorize. This means that a 1st level Mage (140 SP), can cast his one memorized 1st level spell plus a few "apprentice and journeyman" spells, basically cantrips, or he can cast a single 1st level spell that WASN'T the one he memorized, plus either a single journeyman or a single apprentice spell.

Clerics, on the other hand, gain a set number of spells per day, and no spell points. They must choose the spells each day from the list (unlike Mages who will not have access to all the spells, only the ones they've learned). For clerics, the particular deity you choose (based on your alignment) will have certain restrictions to weapons and armour, bonus skills and powers.

Skills in HM basic essentially work the same as in Aces & Eights, only they do not have the curious "backwardness" of A&8. Here, the percentage value you determine for a skill is your chance of success, not your chance of failure. Skill values will be based on the core attribute plus a D12 roll per purchase of the skill.  For a "basic" game, there's a pretty damn complete list of skills, including stuff like "Botany" and "Animal Herding" that really is more than needed for any game I would define as "basic". In this game, one must also purchase proficiencies in order to effectively use weapons and armour.

The combat system is similar to A&8s but without a "shot clock".  The initiative system is based on "counts", but each count represents a full second, rather than 1/10th of a second. Attacks are based on opposed rolls; for example, to do a ranged attack, the attacker rolls a d20 plus his bonus, and the defender rolls either a D20 or a D12, depending on whether he's mobile or stationary. Modifiers for situation are applied, and if the attacker beats the defender's number, its a hit and damage is rolled. Armour provides damage reduction. Shields provide both a defense bonus and damage reduction. All in all, the combat seems to be quite elegant and I'd like to try it out someday. The "detailed example of combat" is provided in the form of a Knights of the Dinner Table comic, that manages to be informative and amusing, inasmuch as KotDT is ever amusing.

Like in Aces & Eights, there is an optional chapter with "Detailed character backgrounds".  The tables provided for HM Basic are not as interesting or as useful as those in A&8s, but I get the feeling that this chapter will be much bigger, and better, in the 5e Hackmaster rules. At least, I sure hope so.

Near the end of the book, a chapter "On Dice" is provided, which is mostly meant to be humourous, and if I recall correctly is pretty well lifted verbatim from the 4e Hackmaster book. It has advice on purchasing your dice, lucky dice, dice cleansing rituals, rolling techniques, etc.

The monster and treasure sections are pretty good, with about as many monsters and items as you got back in the B/E D&D sets. In other words, more than enough to last you from levels 1-5.   The only kind-of cop-out is that there's no Treasure Tables, instead just some slightly vague kind of guidelines about how to distribute treasure. It was a great opportunity for random tables, wasted.

But all in all, Hackmaster Basic is a good solid book.  Its certainly more worthwhile than  most of the retro-clones out there. It combines old-school sensibilities and new-school layout and design. As a fan of both B/E D&D and AD&D, I think its a very good ruleset to provide an experience of the fun of those kinds of gaming adventures. It doesn't quite wow at the level that Aces & Eights did, but it certainly is much better than what I had been expecting the 5e version of Hackmaster to be. Its still funny, but not so funny that it can't be seriously played. It has enough material to play as a standalone game, though for a full-length campaign you'd almost certainly need to switch to 5e Hackmaster. For the price, its a fine value, and I can't think of anything crucial that is either wrong with the game, or that was left out that would be a glaring omission.

If you like Old-school D&D, if you liked 4e Hackmaster, or if you liked Aces & Eights, you will enjoy this book.

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Lorenzetti Rhodesian + Esoterica's Penzance

spot on review

So it's a thumbs up, basically.

Yes, a good solid game that looks like it would be easy and fun to play.

RPGPundit

Good review...


one nitpick. There ARE Treasure Tables. Just really abbreviated ones...

Page: 178-179. They are meant for placing "Special Treasure" aka "Magic Items...

Good, good. I haven't looked into Hackmaster at all.
I need to check it out one of these days. This seems to be totally up my alley.

This review increases my interest in HMB.  I'm looking forward to reading it!

Although, based on how positive this review is, I'm surprised that HMB wasn't awarded an '8'.

I'm pretty strict with my grading system. A 7 means a game that is good, solid, workable, useful, without being vastly innovative or otherwise excellent. That would be an 8; and a 9 is something mindblowing; with a 10 being something that I think absolutely EVERYONE should buy.

Lol, when I was teaching I was known as a tough grader, too.

RPGPundit

Thanks for the review!!!

Quote from: RPGPundit;321241I'm pretty strict with my grading system. A 7 means a game that is good, solid, workable, useful, without being vastly innovative or otherwise excellent. That would be an 8; and a 9 is something mindblowing; with a 10 being something that I think absolutely EVERYONE should buy.

Lol, when I was teaching I was known as a tough grader, too.

RPGPundit

Have you ever given out a 10? For what game?

Anyway, i read this review and the Swasbucklers of the Seven Skies this morning and they both were well done.

Thanks Mark, and Aos. Chad Underkoffler sent me an email thanking me for the review I gave S7S even though it wasn't favorable; I think that many publishers send me their books because they know that even if I DON'T like a game, my reviews will be:
A) guaranteed. I've reviewed every book sent me
B) thorough.
C) fair, trying in that thoroughness to detail anything good and bad I can find.

As for "10s"; I gave my OWN FtA!GN! a 9.  Same with Aces & Eights. I gave Mean Streets a 10, which is a special sort of case though because its probably easier to give a specialized source-book a 10-grade than a full-blown RPG; Mean Streets was REALLY really good at what it set out to do.

RPGPundit

Video of an advanced copy of Frandor's Keep that made its way into my hands last week. Available next month.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yELLMzw3Fw&feature=player_embedded

Also a new HackMaster website has been launched.

http://www.kenzerco.com/hackmaster/

A pdf preview of Frandor's Keep can be found here.

http://www.kenzerco.com/product_info.php?products_id=684

We should be posting previews of the new Hacklopedia (hardback, full color, leathered cover like the Aces and Eights book) soon.