for preorder. For those interested, you can stop by Kenzery & Co.'s website and preorder Hackmaster Basic. They've been playtesting a new version for a while and it looks to be fairly different from the previous version. In fact, if you stopped by the table at GaryCon that's the game you would have seen them playing. Oh, yeah, at the artwork is being done by Erol Otus on the cover. Stop by and take a look: http://www.kenzerco.com/newsdesk_info.p ... 0613a6b190
I really like Hackmaster Basic. They have managed to make character creation a fun part of the game. I hope that Kenzer & Co. run a few games at Gary Con.
Oh, they did at GaryCon I and are definitely planning on doing the same at GaryCon II. I don't know if they'll run what they call LtH (Learn to Hack) which includes character generation or come with pregens ready for some good ol' Hack-n-Slash. I thought about running one but, honestly, I can't get my gaming friends around the system even though I like it. Everybody is either enamored over 4E or Pathfinder so I'm a bit out of the loop right now. (Plus I can't find anybody to game on the nights I'm free.)
Got my copy. I've yet to play a game but it seems someone may attempt to run it soon. Not me, I think. I'm still a little disappointed that the "4th edition" couldn't be continued, but it's still there to play, much like AD&D.
I picked up a copy at gencon. it's a neat system, but I doubt it will see play at my table, as we're happy with 1e AD&D. Still, I'm happy to support Jolly and the rest of Kenzer & Co.
As an Ex-Knight I have to oppose Kenzerco just on general principles. I wish they'd been able to stick with 4th edition ( Hacked AD&D really) but Jolly and the crew got screwed over from the start by WotC. Little Keep on The Borderland was an incredible rewrite of the original. Jolly really did Gary Gygax proud on that one. They could have done amazing things with Hacked versions of the old TSR modules if they weren't subject to WotC interference. Maybe they can can break out the Little Keep kind of quality now that they are free to do what they want.
Actually, it's my understanding that KenzerCo went into their agreement with WoTC knowing how things would end up. The biggest problem with WoTC was the continued insistence that everything be a parody. As to why WoTC acted the way they did with licensing, it only made sense for them as a company to do so. They're already competing with 3 and 1/2 previous editions plus a ton of other material. Do you think they even wanted MORE competition with the release of Hacked modules? It makes good business since for them to pull the license. OTOH, I think it's a bad decision for them to NOT re-release print versions of old modules and game books. It's my opinion that this would be very good for their business and they'd see an even bigger increase in sales. FWIW
I'm sure that some in WotC might have thought that way, but Hackmaster version (even without parody) of the old modules were more likely to get people who were out opf RPGs back into it, and more likely to try the latest edition. Hackmaster was a niche, and it's main consumer was older gamers who were less likely to get back into gaming with the new edition of the game. What they had on their hands was a vehicle where they could use the KODT magazine for advertising and the hacked modules to interest older gamers. These could have gone hand in hand with revisions of the older modules for the new edition. The entire idiody of the WotC business model was to sell rulebooks and not worry about modules. Let 3rd party companies handle the modules and supplements. With Hackmaster they made sure that one small niche of the market would suffer when they forced parody over into farce. Little Keep is an example of parody, most of the crap conversions that came after were nothing but farce, like an endless succession of WG7s that TSR produced post Gygax. And at the same time the Kalamar setting was using the 3rd edition rule system. WotC created their mainstream competition, Hackmaster was no competition at all, just wasted opportunity.
