When you've spent any amount of time running RPGs, you inevitably learn a lot about yourself as a person, as an improviser, and as a project manager. Or at least you have some suspicions about yourself confirmed through play. So it came as little surprise to me when, after running one-shot sessions of Low Fantasy Gaming, Colonial Gothic, and The Sprawl for one group and starting a longer D&D 5th Edition campaign for another group, I realized that I wasn't so great at storing and juggling a large number of system rules in my head while also presenting and arbitrating over a fictional environment. Giving me access to the rulebook during the sessions didn't help; I struggled with trying to do more than a quick, cursory search for a piece of information.
I thought back on my younger years. Did I really do that? Spend a lot of time just paging through myriad D&D books, searching for all the detailed rules? Did I derail a few dozen immersive moments each session to check on minutia? The memories are hazy and I'm left unsure. Maybe I wasn't tuned in enough to the dramatic potential of immersive gaming to notice; maybe I didn't look much up then either.
But it became obvious that, unless I was going to spend a lot of time with the same system to gain deep familiarity, it's best for me to keep the majority of the rules inside my brain, with some ancillary, occasional support from a slim rules tome or, even better, a well-designed GM screen. Clearly, a game with fewer overall rules and an elegant, intuitive core system was ideal for me.
Enter The Black Hack.
In case you're not already aware, the Black Hack is a take on Original Edition Dungeons & Dragons, but that incorporates some unique and brilliant mechanics. It utilizes the standard D&D character attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma), and everything in the game that requires a dice test is resolved by rolling a d20, aiming to roll under a given attribute. Pair that simplicity with the streamlining of situational modifiers (all replaced with Advantage and Disadvantage rolls) and a Usage Die to track supplies (roll a specific die when consumables are used; if you roll 1-2, downgrade that die one step in the dice chain to the next lower die, exhausting when a d4 downgrades) and you've got the recipe for an outstanding RPG with just enough rules to make things interesting without bringing on much cognitive load during play.
Admittedly, it took me a while to warm to this system. I'd read reviews of it back in 2017 when its creator kickstarted a second edition of the game, and... OK, I can be fussy about system mechanics, especially when it comes to the subtle mysteries and alchemy of how I have to use dice when playing. (A good example: the GUMSHOE system only uses one d6, which I feel is brutally austere. It significantly lowers my interest in playing it. But Powered by the Apocalypse games, which mostly use 2d6, I find to be much more pleasing on some sensory, tactile level.) The Black Hack's d20 roll-under approach was, at first, unappealing. The idea of a natural 1 being a critical success seemed counterintuitive. But, over time, I warmed to it -- especially once I considered that another of my favorite RPGs (Call of Cthulhu, built on a percentile/d100 mechanic) was essentially a roll-under system.
And, from there, it quickly became my go-to choice for gaming. There's just something so pleasing about the A5-size hardback rules, that practically everything you need to run the game is contained in that one book and in the mind of the GM. The layout of the text makes it extremely user-friendly for referencing at the table, and it has proven light and modular enough for house ruling wherever needed.
Also of note is the fact that it has spawned a number of hacks, several of which develop some interesting new rules and mechanics. This is going to be an important influence on the next installments in my RPG R&D series. Stay tuned for more on that...
Links
- The Black Hack 2nd Edition PDF
- The Black Hack in print
- Review by Ben at Questing Beast
- The Black Hack subreddit
No comments:
Post a Comment