[Review] The Blood Hack

Before I begin with the review, I want you to know, that I have had a privilege to work with this game. I did the layout, edited the text, made covers and a character sheet and discussed rules. But this review is not biased, because when I received the draft for this game, I fell in love. As I said, it was a privilege for me to get a change to work with The Blood Hack and its author +Matthew Skail.

I love The Black Hack. It takes my favorite rules system and tweaks it to simplier and more versatile form. Even though I still enjoy early D&D and OSR games, The Black Hack is something different, yet familiar. And because it is a versatile system, it is easy to reproduce for different genres, like Cyber-Hacked! which makes cyberpunk fun and fast or The Super Hack which makes super heroes not a chore, with roots to my favorite game(s).

In early 2000 I played Vampire: The Masquerade. I played it a lot! So much I grew sick of it for various different reasons. When I found OSR, I started to think what V:tM would be with OSR rules. When I found The Black Hack, I started thinking what playing vampires in World Of Darkness style campaign would be with it. Then at Google Plus I found out, that Matthew was working on a game using The Black Hack rules with a feel of 90s vampires and modern gothicpunk world.

And damned The Black Hack system works brilliantly with vampires!

You get the normal rules, where you roll everything under your Stats, be it fighting, different tasks or saving rolls. Because this game is set to a modern era, you also get rules for vehicles, firearms, chases and such, which all work great with the simple core mechanics.

There are four different vampire classes from four different Houses of the Blood. They are not just those four core fantasy races re-dressed with fangs, but great write-ups with different knowledges and skills. Each of them is great for different types of archtypes from magisters to warriors.

Vampires naturally have their supernatural powers, Gifts. They gain Gifts more experienced they get, and start with few. You are free to develop your vampire with Gifts you want to take, and are not restricted to bloodlines that determine your future gifts. The gifts are not only things that boost your vampire to be more powerful than human, they are many really clever and more towards roleplaying rather than rollplaying.

Some vampires can also learn rituals, which are blood powered powerful magic. There are five levels of ritual powers, from quite simple to truly horrific! The rituals are absolutely fantastic and don't feel that they are just replacing fantasy roleplaying game's spells. They are a different beast, and add extra flavor to the game.

The great thing is how the innovation of usage die is used with blood points and morale (basically humanity from V:tM). Instead of calculating and spending blood points like hit points, you roll usage die for blood for example when powering gifts or healing. Morale has an absolutely brilliant adaptation of usage die what really captures the downward spiral of vampire morality! Really elegant adaptation of the original system, where you used usage die for inventory items.

You also get lots of different NPC stats from commoners to supernatural beings. Many have special rules, which are simple, yet flavourful.

The Blood Hack has everything you need to begin playing in dark modern days as an undead vampire, who only doesn't struggle with her humanity, but also the dangers of the night. If you liked World Of Darkness games, this is a must have or you like The Black Hack, this is a great addition to your collection to mix with other "hack" genres.

Year 2017 has just started, but as an ex-Vampire fan and a big The Black Hack rules system fan, at this point I can already say, that The Blood Hack will be one of the greatest RPG products of this year.

You can get the PDF from RPGNow and print-on-demand will be released later.
Buy it HERE.

[Review] The Black Hack: Cyber-Hacked!

The Black Hack is fast and fun and D&D compatible fantasy system, which has already been hacked to fill a genre that I have not played yet (disclaimer: supers!). I have played both Shadowrun and Cyberpunk, 2300AD had a cybernetics sourcebook and I am pretty sure I've played GURPS cyberpunk stuff, too. So, cyberpunk in roleplaying games is not new for me. I've longed for a cyberpunk D&D. There are cyberstuff for OSR, but this is my first actual cyberpunk OSR D&D compatible game. Exciting!

Author +Mike Evans and illustrator +Alex Mayo are both cool guys with awesome gaming ideas and stuff. So this should be very, very good!

The PDF is 21 pages, with 18 pages of actual RPG stuff, including the character sheet. What I love in TBH is that you get a full RPG rules you learn to play while you eat a dinner before the game night begins. Like other TBH hacks, the layout is simple and apes the original. The only picture is on the cover. Very printer-friendly and space efficient, yet dull.

 The rules are basically a carbon copy of TBH with few exceptions and additions that suit a modern genre. This starts to get annoying. Sure, you only need this to run the game, but now I am starting to get many, many copies of The Black Hack rules. It would be ace if the layout would be that when I'd print this, I could opt out all the basic and core TBH rules and only print the new stuff that is not already included in the original game. But it doesn't happen here. Small additional and new rules are scattered here and there within the text already in other hacks and the main game.

The most important new rules are full auto fire, which is simple. In many games when you shoot more than one shot the rules get wonky and slow. This is not the case here. Funny thing is, though, that two handed combat also affects guns you hold with two hands. But if you think about it, this is an elegant way in making bigger weapons more damaging, when the core mechanic is, that weapon damage is class based. Very, very clever!

Drugs are also easy. They give a small bonus, but you suffer disadvantage(s) under influence. Also addiction is as simple. Great! Taking drugs is fast and easy.

Vehicles and chases have also simple rules in the fashion of TBH. They are pretty good and should cover most of the situations. When a vehicle is shot enough, it is destroyed and there is a 50/50 chance can it be salvaged or not. Chase is a simple series of attribute tests, where you either gain or lose distance. Pretty boring, and it could take a long time to just roll after roll. There should be an extra rule for dangerous manouvres to gain more than 1 point of distance (starting from 5, 10 to escape, 1 to get caught). Manouvres are easily done, roll with disadvantage to gain double points. Still dull, but adds danger and story element (I try to steer to this narrow alley...).

One of the most important rules in a cyberpunk game is hacking. I think Cyberpunk 2020 is an awesome game, but the hacking part of it is extremely dull - and slow. Normal hacking in Cyber-Hacked is a simple INT test, but there is also more detailed rules, using die-drop table! You take a number of dice and drop them on a paper. The die type and value tell from a random table, what it is. Then connect them and voilá, you got a quickly generated data network to be hacked! All the stuff you do hacking you use usage die to do. When it's dropped to zero, you're booted. These hacking rules are fast, fun and brilliant!

You also get contacts who are basically people you can use as resources, and you can be either a human or a synthetic before you choose a class. There are 7 classes to choose from, including a psychic. The classes basically work like in TBH, they each have something special they do. In addition, they now are listed with starting equipment (you, I dislike buying normal gear for characters) and an interesting trinket. Some of these classes are modified from the basic classes, some are a bit different. I think every player should find their favorite easily from these.
Different kind of everyone other is Psychic, who can use his psychic abilities per day based on his level. These abilities are basically like spells in a fantasy game.

Equipment list is minimal, but enough. Cyberware has no special rules. You can have 4 of the (one character class being an exception) to gain some bonuses or other effects. That's it. No problems between a line where human ends and a machine starts. There could have been a little more to this, because now cyberware is just like equipment.

There's plenty of enemy stats to fight and use, but there could have been few more, because now the one page table doesn't reach the end of the page, but leaves an empty white space being short. This layout problem could have been fixed with more enemies! This is plenty already, but it just looks sloppy and lazy.

So, what do I think? This is very, very good in a The Black Hack good. TBH family products are DIY. A bit raw, but full of good ideas (WHEN THEY ARE GOOD, THAT IS) with simple and fun core mechanics. Even though it's dull to get same basic rules all over again, the additions to cyberpunk genre included in CYBER-HACKED are great. Inexpensive price, D&D compatible, fast to learn, fast to play... I see no reasons why everyone shouldn't get a copy. Even though you don't plan to play a campaign of CYBER-HACKED, you can keep this just in case, if someday, someone wants to play some cyberpunk in 10 minutes!
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You can buy the PDF from RPGNow.

[Review] The Super Hack

This is the first superheroes hack (as far as I know) for the popular phenomenom called The Black Hack (my review). TBH is so popular, because the rules are super lite still being very old-school compatible with Dungeons & Dragons, and it is easy, you guessed right, to hack!

There has been several different hacks for TBH core game with variable quality. Some are awesome, some feel just that they're made for easy money to milk from a popular brand (core rules copy pasted only a thing or two of addition).

Before I go to the actual review, I must say that I have not played superhero roleplaying games. Ever! I did own True20 powered Mutants & Masterminds 2nd Edition, which had a great amount of powers which worked great for character creation and concepts, but point buy character creation was a turn off, especially when you had to use a pool of points to buy everything from stats to gear! I hate that kind of stuff. At the moment in my collection I have Champions 4th Edition, but it is very thick and looks so boring, I've never read it more than a couple of sentences at once! That's no thanks for me.

As a big fan of The Black Hack, which I have ran several times and have played a couple of times and had tons of fun with it always, I am very enthusiastic of this product. Easy and versatile system and the page count is not intimidating at all: the PDF clocks at 20 pages, with 16 pages of actual content (one of those being a character sheet and another a play example, so there's 14 pages of rules and material).

Visually The Super Hack imitates the original source. Instead of ink drips on pages, there are low-ish resolution cracks. The core mechanics of the game are explained clearly, as is character creation. Even better than in the original game! Because this is a superhero game, you choose superpowers determined by your class of choice with some freedom. You can also pick one superpower more than once to juice it up. Characters start with two pieces of (special) equipment, a costume and a secret identity. The equipment list is extremely short, only 12 items! There should be more of them, at least 20 to make at least a decent random table. Items have special rules, which are pretty good and usage die is well thought and adapted in many cases.

The rules are quite similar to The Black Hack, but there are minor differences. One is proficiency, which I don't understand at all. If character uses or wears and equipment that is not appropriate for her class or superpowers, they add their Protection Points to any rolls to attack or avoid damage with a disadvantage. But there are no guidelines what gear is inappropriate to what class or superpower. In addition the rule is stupid; more powerful you are to protect yourself, the crappier you are at using some stuff. Weird and not making any sense to me. If someone can explain this to me...

Majority of other rules are a carbon copy from The Black Hack. A great addition is a sub-table for Out Of Action, called This Is Serious. I really, really like this one! In format one weird thing is, that enemy HD are listed under Initiative section.

There are four different superhero classes, which are quite stupid. They should be more broad and cover different types of heroes. Crimefighter is silly, because aren't all superheroes crimefighters in a way or another. Other's are like a Warrior from the original game without extra attacks, and a Thief who is just good at shooting getting also Warrior's extra attacks. And then there is a guy with just very good saves. Character classes are not that good, they are unimaginative and don't represent different hero stereotypes as they should.

When characters level up, they can in addition to possible attribute increaswes also develop their superpowers further, which is nice. Superpowers have a better effect (actually this is the same table as The Black Hack's damage table). They also have an usage die, which is regained after a rest. There are 20 superpowers (two with variations, so actually 22) and the list is quite nice covering all kinds of powers to combine to create an unique superhero.

There is also a rule, that with advantages and disadvantages (roll 2d20, and pick better/worse), GM can also apply modifiers (this rule wording didn't meet editor's eyes, it's super wonky) which basically change the simple idea of advantages and disadvantages backwards to modifier calculation. Unnecessary addition to The Black Hack rules.

Instead of "Armor Points" characters have "Protection Points", which basically is the same thing; damage reduction that is refilled after rest. One fun thing in combat is that a group of thugs represents one hit die point per a good - so when you score 5 points of damage, you actually stun (superheroes don't kill people, do they?) 5 of the enemies! Very, very fun detail, where you can feel your character's power compared to ordinary thugs! There are only seven different example baddies included, which should be enough for an example, because in super games most of the bad guys and gals are unique anyways.

In my opinion The Super Hack is hastily put together, yet a fun and good little addition to "The Hack" family. There are minor flaws, but they are so puny that they don't make the game bad. Only major problem I have with this game are character classes. Only one of these (The Brick) is good as a heroic stereotype, rest are not at all. With better character classes this would have been super awesome! Now it is "only" super good. Revised edition with better classes would be the bomb! Before that happens (if ever), I need to hack this myself and print it out.

Oh, and in the end the example play scenario is fun and inspiring, even though there could have been a wider variety of game mechanics used in it.

Do I recommend it? Yes! The Black Hack is great fun little system easy to just play and have fun with, and The Super Hack is quite as good, only if you make the classes better yourself. If you like superhero games, this is a pocket version of the genre. If you don't own any superhero games, this is an inexpensive place to get one.

Get it from RPGNow, available in both PDF ($2.00) and print-on-demand ($6.00).
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EDIT 09/25/2016:

I've had discussed with the author, and here are his responses to two points that rubbed me the wrong way, the PP affecting inappropriate equipment use and the character classes. Simon Purley wrote:

"In terms of rules - it's TSH version of TBH having different character classes being limited to specific types of armour. I couldn't limit the character classes as rigidly as he did in TBH but I wanted it in somewhere."

"In terms of genre - It means to stop people buying Superpowers. The first ever SHRPG Superhero 2044 had a "Superhero shop" and, as soon as they made money, people went and bought weapons and armour and flight rings etc. The game just didn't resemble the comics. Basically why doesn't Captain America take out Iron Man, steal his armour and put it on? If he did, he wouldn't know how to use it."

"BTW: The character classes are Superhero tropes. The Brick is your classic brawler (The Hulk, The Thing, Luke Cage). The Blaster is your classic ranged attacker (The Human Torch, Cyclops). The Crimefighter is your classic human who can go toe to toe with the super types (Batman, Captain America, Daredevil). The unique is your weirdos (The Vision, The Sacrlet Witch, Jessica Jones)."

"A design choice I went for in TSH was to keep the rules stripped down without loads of explanation or examples - in keeping with the philosophy of TBH. When I moved from PDF to print it created a couple of extra pages which I could have used for more explanation or example scenarios ("Superheroes vs. dinosaurs" doesn't take much space to explain.) It was a definite choice not to do so" 

 

 

 

The Black Hack + Roll20 + The Overrun Mines

I and +Kookko Jaskinen  continued the game we started in public at eat-all-you-can pizzeria Rax via Roll20. One major change was, that we ditched Swords & Wizardry WhiteBox and decided to use The Black Hack instead. Converting the character was easy, because all that matters is attributes.

Mad real time mapping skills, looks exactly like the original map!

We continued the adventure of Jarod, who gained epithet "Unlucky" because he did not only lose a finger, but also half of his face in Temple Of Greed. After this Fighter's master died at the temple, Jarod had no future in the religious order. So he started traveling and ended up to this remote mining town. Drinking was what he started to do...

There he met new party members, Thurnsted the Rogue, who made home of this towns tavern avoiding the law for a reason he called "a misunderstanding". The second addition to the party was Ivan Slick, the Cleric, who was sent to a pilgrimage, where he was supposed to see a holy sign that would grand him his praying ability (read: second level). That never happened and he got frustrated ending to the very same mining town drinking.

They had jolly time drinking and eating and sleeping, but the day came when they ran out of money. Lucky for them, the mines had some trouble. I rolled random rumors from The Overrun Mines adventure and got:

• "Here have been cave-ins, something rustles the stone in the deep and I barely escaped with my life."
• "There is a dungeon holding cell deep within the mine; I have no idea what it was used for."
• "The mine used to be a goblin hideout, we cleared it of those foul creatures years ago."

They left Thurnsted to the tavern, because his Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma were low, so he wouldn't say anything stupid or haggle like an idiot, and went to meet minemaster. They got the mission to go check these rumors so employees would get back to work. From 100 SP (I use silver standard) reward they managed to haggle to 200 SP! Great! That's plenty of money to continue easy life!

In a fantasy setting full of monsters, who of a right mind would work in a
place like this?!

Inside the dungeon in the common room where ore is loaded and supplies unpacked they took some pick axes and rope with them and continued deeper. Ivan the Cleric scouted the first intersection a little and they decided to go forward where seemed to be a big cave.

The cave is where the ore is dug. In the middle of this large cave was a cave in, and deep down a wounded grey worm. They figured out, maybe this grey worm was the reason for cave-ins and rustling noises, and decided to kill it. They started pushing rocks down trying to squash it!

Thurnsted is a weak fellow, so I decided every rock they drop (dealing 3d6 damage) on the work, Thurnsted should roll STR starting from advantage, then normal, and the rest disadvantages. If he failed, he would refuse to push down any more rocks because he has hurt himself. The second rock down and whining starts! The worm had 9 HP left and Thurnsted tried to deal more damage with his crossbow, but didn't deal near enough to kill it. They were thinking, they must kill it to claim it their work so no one can deny their reward.

I ruled, that Thurnsted could try to roll one extra rock with a disadvantageous STR roll, but if he failed, he'd suffer 1d3 damage for hurting his muscles more. Luckily there was a melting oven with liquid hot iron in it. They poured it in the cave-in killing the worm. When it's skin bursted and boiled, it made exactly the same noises as cheese sausage on a grill. Shizzle shizzle crack pop. The worm was dead.

Dead gray worm. It was 30 meters long!

The opening to the south-east had many killed miners and they figured out the worm came that way and managed to grab and kill few. As the miners flew around the cave-in the blind worm fell in following them. There must be more of these worms, maybe, but they didn't care. One was dead and that's enough! But there's still those three other rumors to take care of...

They follow the passage and take the intersection north, where there is a barred door. Thurnsted opens the door and jumps back like a coward and Ivan steps in like a hero. Nothing inside, except remains of a fire and blackened goblin bones, which naturally reanimate and attack. The combat was not tough, but they decided to spend a hour fixing their armor after it (to restore their Armor Points).

There is no random encounters table in The Overrun Mines, so I decided to use Underworld Day Rules table. Once a day underground you roll it to see the effect on the party. I wanted to use it, because this party wouldn't be underground for a day (necessarily). Die tells, that Thurnsted the Rogue suffers 1 (5%) penalty to every action until he gets some fresh air. He starts to get frustrated because there are no treasures, goblin bones where empty.

Forward they venture and take a junction to the left to barracks. No treasures, just junk. Player Jaakko wanted to roll again the Underworld Day Rules table, because he thought that Thurnsted got more frustrated for the lack of  treasures and it effects the whole group. Everyone's morale suffers and they lose 2 permanent HP until they get out.

Back and forward to an ancient goblin throne room. On the throne there is a shackled, very living dead goblin king. On the floor four goblin skeletons lay. What makes Thurnsted run to the room yelling "FINALLY TREASURE", was a partially open fake wall.

Image from http://3drt.com

And the goblin king breaks it's straps and the skeletons reanimate. Combat started quite well, but soon turned into murder - of adventurers. Ivan was first to be KO'd and Jarod decided to both hit a skeleton and chuck some healing potion in his system (second level Fighter has two attacks, I ruled he can attack with a disadvantage and use a potion on his friend). Ivan is back in game, but suffering broken bones and -2 to physical attributes.

Thrunsted, even though he is weak and a dick, was lucky both in hitting and avoiding to be hit. Their second level Warrior, Jarod was soon downed and not too long, and Ivan followed him to oblivion. Thurnsted managed to kill the undead goblin king with cunning (running and shooting) and force (stabbing like mad). With the band's last potion of health, he revived Jarod. They decided to flee, but Jarod insisted they take the corpse of Ivan Slick with them to find someone to resurrect him - or at least offer him proper funeral.

They also decided they should tell they have dealt with the problems, get the reward and get outta there as soon as possible, before they figure out that not all problems are dealt with. Good luck with that! Next time... A new dungeon to explore and to die in!

DM notes, NPC stats and info, initiative counter, combat tracker. All well organized. I didn't actually use Death & Dismemberment table, because The Black Hack's Out of Action (OofA) works fine! That red d20 on the picture was a bomb! It gave crits for adventurers (natural 1) and crits for enemies (natural 20)!

Big thanks for Jaakko for a fun game, and for helping me out writing the final combat. There was lots of things going all with one-shot-kill goblin skeletons, and falling party members.

Jaakko is also a great player for 1-on-1 games, because he is Dungeon Master in his own games. It's fun to create some scenes and details together. I can throw him a ball for a moment to ask him for some details on something, and it is fun! Also the background story for this adventure (basically downtime between Temple Of Greed and The Overrun Mines) we developed together, which was great fun! I really enjoy gaming 1-on-1 with Jaakko, we are good together... arrright now it starts to sound inappropriate!

Well, until next time!

And hey, if you want to, you can suggest a dungeon for one level characters. Preferably one you can run in one session (two dungeons down and like 1/4 explored in both!!!) IF you don't have any greater ideas, they will travel to... No Country For Weak Men by +Anders Hedenbjörk Lager. And when the party (or anyone) hits 3rd level, there will be an extra episode of The Flayed King by +Tim Shorts where a new character of a new character class will be introduced to the game... well, only if he survives!

D&D 5e game night + birthday presents I gave

I got to play Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition with my friends for the first time face-to-face. It was also almost Dungeon Master Jaakko's birthday and my birthday was recently, so there was minor celebration going on, too!

I wanted to gift Jaakko something, so here's what I gave to him!

Custom "Ravenloft Bootleg" booklet I created using pictures from WotC Facebook stream.
Pamphlet 2: Dystopia, my latest publication. PWYW at RPGNow.
Ikiseutu, my one-page-dungeon contest entry, PWYW at RPGNow.
D30s from my store.

Here are pictures of Ravenloft Bootleg content. Not all pages are photo'd, only few samples:

The game we played was Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition and scenario was Lost Mines Of Phandelver. +Kookko Jaskinen (Jaakko) had actually started the campaign earlier and one of the players (Human Fighter) had played earlier. Two of us just stepped in. Jaakko has this idea of running a mega campaign, where different players can join at different times, but the story will go on.

The characters were:

• 3rd level Human Fighter with plate mail and big-ass fancy axe.
• 1st level Human Druid, forest hobo look. Ex thief (background) I figured out.
• 1st level Aarakocra Barbarian who looks like a turkey (my character).

My gaming equipment:
Dice and a dice cup (D-oom and other designs available at HOLVI).
Character sheets (found here).
Custom notebook for character.
D&D Basic Rules Lulu print with Petri Hiltunen's art.

In the beginning of session I (Aarakocra) and forest hobo druid had arrived to Phandelver where we went to a tavern (what else would we do, eh). Inside walked a warrior with freezing armor, who started to suggest that the forest hobo should leave, so he could have a word with this female fighter. I used my military background and officer rank to cool the situation down.

What catched my eye was an egg artifact the forest hobo was carrying. When I was just an egg, I fell through a rift from my home plane to Faerun, Icewind Dale. There barbarians raised me. I thought this artifact egg (druid's somekind of magic booster thingie) could be something related to my race. So I wanted to stick with him. Forest druid thought I am a bit weird wanting to follow him, but it was okay (motivation for my character to stick with another character achieved).

Outside we went to find out four red cloaked goons were toughing up people and stealing their money. When the fighter came out of the tavern, forest hobo charmed (spell) one of the goons and reassured him to give the money for him if the fighter who obviously had already done good deeds in the city wanted to search them. And the fighter went to interrogate the goons.

Aarakocra, as an ex soldier, decided to get near the fighter to possibly back her up if the situation would heaten. And it did, when the forest hobo decided to club one of the goons. And fight begun. Fighter's wolf companion did all her dirty work and I raged with great results!

After we fought the goons... it was late and we decided to call it a day. Getting characters together took a lot of time and there was lots of roleplaying, which was fun. And I think the simple fight versus few goons was great to let some steam out before ending the session.

Here are few pictures of the evening:

To the left where I sat Dungeon Master's The Black Hack screen, dice and starter set box.

Famous rapstar Kookko Jaskinen telling something neat about his brand new PHB.

Our to-be Druid forest hobo.

SNACKS!

From left to right: Human Fighter, Human Druid, Aarakocra Barbarian.

Dungeon Master doing his job.

CAKE!

The Scifi Hack update + updated cover

For first, the cover is now updated with proper usage of The Black Hack, including official TBH logo.

Second, the format is now 6x9 print-on-demand in mind.

Third, this will be bigger than I thought! I cannot stop adding extra material to make it not just a re-dressed version of The Black Hack's fantasy aspect, but also a complete set of rules to include all kinds of little scifi stuff.

D-oom will release The Scifi Hack

I am working hard to publish my first stand-alone roleplaying game based on THE BLACK HACK by David Black. The game will include:

• Full rules
• Science fiction character classes and races-as-classes
• Equipments
• Alien creatures
• Random generators for adventuring sites both in space and on planets
• Psionics and nanotech
• Spaceships and space combat

Release date will be very soon.

Tower Of Tremors play report

Last Sunday I decided to run Tower Of Tremors for my girlfriend using The Black Hack rules. You can find Tower Of Tremors and lots of other material in Crypt Of Doom - A Compilation of Patreon Supported 2015 Material available both in pdf and print-on-demand.

This post has spoilers of the adventure, so proceed with your own risk.

My girlfriend rolled four characters.

• John Wayne the warrior
• Ragget The Wise the thief
• Several Snakes the Cleric
• Tittie the Conjurer

The band of four traveling adventurers arrived to a remote town, where they found out that tremors have started when a weird ancient metal tower activated one day. They were promised 500 GP if they can find out what is going on at the tower and stop the tremors. To the tower they ventured.

The tower is four storeys high and made of unknown metal. Next to the security door there is a buttoned panel with unknown alien symbols, and above the door is a crystal. Fell careful buttons pushed did nothing, so John Waybe decided to hit the crystal with his two-handed axe. He missed it few times, when Several Snakes jumped in and poked it with his 10 feet pole. "This is how you hit it", he instructed. John Wayne tried again and cracked the crystal into pieces. Nothing happened. Back to inspect the panel, which opens the security door after some button bashing. They enter the tower.

If the Warrior didn't break the crystal already, there would been a 50% change to get blasted by it when entering the tower. The effect would have been damage and system shock which results penalty to dexterity based actions.

The first room has no light except what comes from outside through the opened security door. Some metal panels on the ceiling are loose, and random electric wires spark. The frame of the tower is visible which you can pass. There are also two elevators; one going up, another going down. The Cleric lights a torch and they take the elevator down.

In the basement level there is the mounting of the tower's frame, and on the mounting there is a large crystal size of a pony. On the crystal different kinds of alien symbols scroll. They investigate the crystal ball, but only Tittie can understand, that when the alien symbol values reach the peak, then a tremor occurs, and the values go back down only to continue rising. John Wayne tries to destroy the crystal ball with his two-handed axe, but the crystal ball is too tough and thick so nothing happens. Back up they go and pass the frame to the other side of the room.



After the frame the room is lit with blinking red lights. There are two elevators, down and up. In the middle of the room there is a scorched skeleton and in the corner there is a turret. Tittie understands that the turret is some kind of a "lightning rod" that has shot the unfortunate adventure. At the end is a door. Carefully they pass the skeleton to the door, which is opened by several small bots.

These little bots have different operations in the tower. They say "beel plip bleep", but when attacking, they go "BRLOP BRLEEP BLROP".

Behind the door the corridor splits and they take the right path. In the end of this short corridor is a room furnished with cozy sofas and seats and there are few tables, too. Dim blue light and music are sedative; all save for soothing effects, and Conjurer Tittie fails falling asleep. John Wayne slaps him, but Tittie remains asleep. They leave the room carrying Tittie out. When they get out, Tittie wakes. She wonders why her cheek is aching. They go to the other junction, only to find a storage room.

There are several metal closets illuminated by light blue light. All closets are closed, and there is a button panel with alien symbols on buttons with each of the closets. John Wayne tries random button bashing, but nothing happens. Each of them decide to start to investigate them, and smart Tittie discovers how to open them! Seven closets have random stuff in them (I should have randomly generate these rewards, but didn't as I started to run this scenario without any preparation. I'll use random roleplaying book's treasure generator for these goods, only redressing items as scifi).

After a nice haul of stuff and treasures they go back to the room where a skeleton is and take the elevator down to a basement level, where the other side of the tower's mount is. Twenty small bots operate it, maybe fixing or maintaining. They decide to leave these bots alone and go back up to take the elevator to higher level.

Only alive alien remaining
operating a control panel.

In this room there are four cryogenic freezing pods. Two remain closed and inside are one dead alien in each. Two pods are opened, next to the other lies dead alien and from the second opened pod wet footprints go to the other side of the room bypassing the frame. Thief Ragget The Wise sneaks to take a peek, but alien who operates a control panel notices him! The alien reaches his upper appendices to his forehead and focuses on mentally blasting the Thief! Thief loses temporarily 3 points of Wisdom and 3 points of Intelligence, but aliens suggestive commands don't affect him. Ragget shoots an arrow at the alien wounding him. John Wayne the Warrior plunges to attack the alien and Conjurer Tittie shoots it with magic missile, except he fails the spell. Alien operates his control panel and summons three bots which climb the tower frame from down below. Ragget shoots the alien again, but it doesn't die yet. John Wayne swings his two-handed axe at the little bots trying to hit two of them (Warriors can hit as many opponents per turn as their level, but as a first level character he can attack only one opponent. But the player wanted to hit two, so I let her do it with a disadvantage) bashing them into bits!

Alien, almost dead, uses his control panel to electrocute John Wayne (Youtube example) who falls flat paralyzed. Several Snakes the Cleric smashes alien's head and kills him. Tittie out of her spells smashes the last bot with her staff.

THE END OF PART 1.

My player was too tired to continue, but there is still interesting places left for the next time, like robot room, bot recharge and repairs and of course the top floor...

Actually, I'll generate the random treasure from the storage room right now for the next time. Just a second, I'll fetch a rulesbook.

And back! I decided to use Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition Dungeon Master's Guide, because I have never used it. I have barely read it! Table 84, page 133, gives treasure types letters. There are 17 letters for individual and small lair treasures, so I'll roll 1d20 (ignoring result 18+) to determine which treasure type I use for each closet.

The treasures in these seven closets are:

CLOSET 1:

• A scroll containing the following 7 spells: Wish (9), Fly (3), Reverse gravity (7),Forcecage (7), Invisibility, greater (4), Dimension door (4)  The spells can be copied on Conjurer's spell book. If the spell is read from the scroll, the scroll burns and all the spells written on the scroll are lost. (This helped a lot determining the random spells)
• A map of Carcosa
• Curse. When this scroll is read the reader is cursed. He suffers +1 to all Dexterity rolls until the curse is lifted.

CLOSET 2:

• 40 SP, 1 platinum

CLOSET 3:

• 400 GP

CLOSET 4:

• 8 potions: Clairaudience, Unknown (Delusion), Unknown (Poison), Oil of Air elemental invulnerability, Fire resistance, Super heroism (Warrior) x2, Levitation. 

CLOSET 5:

• 3 gems (1000 GP gem, 50 GP semi-precious, 100 GP fancy)
• 1 art object (10,000 GP)
• Magic sword +1 (xp 400)

CLOSET 6:

• 7 Platinum

CLOSET 7:

• Magic ring of Contrariness. Wearer is unable to agree with any idea, statement or action. Wearer's strength is 18.
• Robe of eyes. Can see in any direction, also invisible. Advantage to tracking. Light spell can blind the robe.

http://sharkinabox.deviantart.com/

Preparations to run The Black Hack online

I have already played few games online using Skype, Roll20, Google Hangouts and Google docs. Now I am preparing to run game like a pro!

I am running The Black Hack (my review), and decided to use it because it is lightweight and new. I have an online group for Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition, so I wanted to run something a little different yet OSR in compability and feel.

I also wanted to start the game with Where Is Margesh Blackblood? by +Tim Shorts, because it has so much in it from combat to great roleplaying opportunities. I've used it several times, and always love to run it.

A MAP

I am already familiar with the adventure I am about to run, so I don't have to make preparations for it anymore. This time I make an area map for it, though.

A quick drawing of the adventure's area ready for scanning.

After I scanned the hand-drawn map, I added some color with GIMP and text with paint.net.

Here is the map ready for action!

ONLINE TOOLS

Skype is what we use for communications. I am here at my house alone, three of the players are under same roof and the last player is at his place. We use Skype, because everyone has an easy access to it. We use video conversation, and text chat for some meta that is easier to write than explain.

Roll20 is used for dice rolling and for the map.

Here is the map, fog of warred, in Roll20 ready to be revealed for the players.

Trello is an online organizer notes program I use to keep track of the adventure. This is the first time I am using it, but even during pre-game preparations it feels extremely handy! It's easy to add and manage notes. I've got "lists" for house-rules (for quick referance), characters, adventure log and extra information there. Adding new lists and info is so quick and easy I think it won't slow the game down a bit!

My Trello notes look like this. More to come during the play!

Google Drive for hosting all kinds of images, like for NPCs to quickly share and locate.

PHYSICAL TOOLS

There already are quite a few windows open on my system, and even though I use two monitors, I don't want to use pdf viewers for rules and adventure. Also some oldschool notepad and pens are always needed.

I had to print The Black Hack pdf (waiting for the physical reward to arrive). I am lucky to own a printed copy of Where Is Margesh Blackblood? Index card on the top is a simple referance for Ascending to Descending AC. It comes handy every now and then.

HOW DO YOU RUN ONLINE GAMES?

What tools do you use? What is your preferred chatting platform? Do you use voice, video or text only?

Game report to follow...

[Review] The Black Hack

The Black Hack pdf can be bought from RPGNow.

The Black Hack is an OSR game inspired by 70's original rules and a result of very successful Kickstarter. I was going to review this immediately after getting the pdf reward, but decided to postpone, as the first version was really unsatisfying and they were going to update it soon. Now that I have the new(est) version of The Black Hack, I am ready to review it, as many of the flaws I (and probably many others) had pointed out to the creator.

With The Black Hack you get a simple system with unified mechanics across all the things you want to do in a roleplaying games. With familiar six attributes from Dungeons & Dragons, you roll under for skill checks (attribute checks), to attack, to avoid being attacked, and to save versus various effects and dangers. Basically this means you don't need all kinds of attribute modifiers and sub-systems. Everything is d20 roll under. That is simple, and quick, and even though it reduces every bit of attribute bonuses and usages and sub-systems and whatever downgrading the game into extremely simple one-rail system actually downgrading into the core simplicity of original alternative attribute test rule, it is extremely innovative. You get to keep the old-school feel and high compability with other OSR games' stats with a different kind of a system. This is what is great with OSR: Whitehack is different from Labyrinth Lord which is different from Basic Fantasy which is different from The Black Hack, yet all these different systems are highly compatible with six same attributes with same ranges, and with AC and HD. Even though AC is different from damage reducing to ascending to descending, you can easily convert them around.

Being a different game with similar stats really makes The Black Hack stand out in the crowd of clones. You get D&D feel with different rules. And there is a reason to use these rules, if you want something simple, easy, and quick, but still want to play D&D.

One innovative thing is also penalties from example armor. If you are not proficient in armor you wear, you add the armor's protection value to your roll under roll result. The better (higher points) your armor is you are not proficient with, more likely you fail the task tests. Great! There is one problem with armor, though. Armor points reduce as much as they reduce the damage taken, until you rest. The explanation is, that the character is too tired or wounded to use the armor efficiently before resting. I find this a bit unsatisfying, when a leather armor protects you from 2 points. That is less than average damage from an attack dealing 1d6 of damage, and half of dagger (1d4) attacks make your leather armor using too demanding... Deadly, and makes armors one-hit-protectors. Advantage is that you cannot be this knight in a tin can no one can hit, but disadvantage is that armor makes little difference.

Instead of different save values for different things like poison or wands, you roll under your attribute to save. This is great! All attributes are equally important, not only to bend bars and sneak, and attack, but also for this! In other games save score is attached to character's class and level. When you level your save gets better. In The Black Hack when you level (no experience points, you level after a session or adventure, or when Game Master decides), you try to roll higher than your attribute score to raise it. Similar system you can find in Call Of Cthulhu for skills. And I like it; the better/higher your attribute is, harder it is to increase and develop it!

Two-handed weapons, critical damage, and effects of dropping below 0 HP are all discussed, which are not necessarily covered in original edition(s) or other OSR games. There's even an advantage/disadvantage system similar to Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition presented.

Inventory rules are what I like a lot, thanks to Lamentations Of The Flame Princess, where instead of weight you consider sizes. Innovation in The Black Hack is usages. Instead of keeping track of how many items you own of a certain type, you track usage dice. Roll 1-2 on a die, and it drops to one category lower. This is brilliant!

The four basic classes even with not that much technical data are different from each other, which is naturally good. There are no races, but I don't mind. The Black Hack can very well be grittier human-only monsters-are-monsters-not-your-friendly-companions.

There are few changes to magic rules. Usually slots you memorize spells in are slots you can cast spells "from". So if your character has two first level slots and one second level slot (third level cleric - this is basically the table found in other OSR games to determine how many spells your caster can memorize per day). When casting a spell and a save is failed, you reduce one spell slot of corresponding level of the spell. So, you can cast lots of spells and only a failed save cuts back your daily spell casting limits. You can cast directly from a book or memorize spells to automatically cast them without referring to that clumsy old tome. The text in spells section is a bit unclear, so I hope I understood it correctly.

Spell descriptions are short, but enough. Same with monsters. Even though they are (now) arranged in descending HD order, the monsters of same HD are not in alphabetical order. Frustrating flaw. HD 3 monsters are listed in this order:
Bugbear, Harpy, Wererat, Shadow, Doppleganger, Wight.
A small flaw, but annoying.

Character sheet is neat. It would be awesome in all it's minimalistic glory only if "spells" section was more useful. Many games have a sucking spells section in their character sheet.

Last page is an example of play. It is not that bad giving all kinds of different situations how to use rules, but it is plagued with typos.

ORIGINAL FLAWS

• Poor editing (somehow edited)
• Text a bit unclear at times (lots of inprovement)
• Chapters badly organized (quite the same)
• No spell list (added)
• Monsters in random order instead of alphabetic or HD (organized with HD)
• Banishing undead written so that you roll for each individual undead (fixed to groups of undead)

Biggest problem for me was the abstinence of spell list. The author explained, that you can get the spells from any of other games, so he didn't want to increase the page count with them. My argument was, that as The Black Hack is a small game and would be a stand-alone game with spells, it would be extremely stupid to carry a big hardcover (or whatever edition and version you take spells from) with a small game like this. My suggestion was to make spell list like in Tunnels & Trolls earlier editions, or like the monster entries, one liners.

Now as there are spells, this can be used as a complete game and you don't need to carry your big bulky PHB (or whatever rules with spells) with you to actually use The Black Hack.

Original score would have been:

4/5 for cool ideas and house rules

2/5 as a full game

Score for current edition 1.1.

4/5 for being a full game with neat ideas and simple playability