Troll Lord Games

Ok so looking through the various gaming blogs today, I came across The Moldy Vale (http://moldyvale.blogspot.com/) in the Blog Roll on Jeff's Game Blog http://jrients.blogspot.com/

The fine author of The Moldy Vale had a link to Kenzer & Company's website and cited that HackMaster Basic is now a free offering in PDF on their website. Here is the link to the info: http://www.kenzerco.com/product_info.ph ... cts_id=862

And here is the direct link to the PDF: http://www.kenzerco.com/free_files/hack ... _free_.pdf

Enjoy this outstanding of frugal gaming opportunities!

Thanks for this - I've been curious about this system. It looks a little more detailed than I'm inclined at the moment, but you never know - I went through a Rolemaster phase, after all ...

Took a read through the PDF. A bit different than the dead tree version of HMb book I own. Primarily there is no character creation. But since they're selling an a Basic + version, I can understand their choice to leave it out. The silly dice stuff and index were left out as well. Regardless it comes with plenty of Pre-gens, and has several adventures, neither of which came with the original HMb book. In the downloads section of the hackmaster site there are quick-start rules if you're hankering to try those out.

Since the only thing I liked about Hackmaster was the fact that it was a spoof of AD&D and much of the rest of the rolegaming rules and players, I do not care much for this new version. But it's certainly worth the current price.

TheMetal1 wrote:Took a read through the PDF. A bit different than the dead tree version of HMb book I own. Primarily there is no character creation. But since they're selling an a Basic + version, I can understand their choice to leave it out. The silly dice stuff and index were left out as well. Regardless it comes with plenty of Pre-gens, and has several adventures, neither of which came with the original HMb book. In the downloads section of the hackmaster site there are quick-start rules if you're hankering to try those out.

The quickstart rules have simplified character generation rules within them which should reduce or eliminate the "no character generation" drawback of the HackMaster Basic PDF. The main difference between the free version and the "+" is experience rules and spells to level 10 instead of level 5.

HackMaster though isn't my cup of tea. I'm sure if I'm inclined I can mine it for ideas.

The system has always intrigued me since I first saw it come out back in the day with HM4e. Never got anything, other than a few KODTs until near the end of the liscense. Have most of the 4e stuff, save Garweze's Wurld, Deities & Demigawds, and few modules.

Picked up HMb when it came out a while back along with Frandor's Keep, but like so many other games HM4e and HMb have simply been nice to look at once in a while. The HMb systems seems straight forward enough, but it something new to learn, remember, and then teach to others. My current group of gamers would likely not find it fun at all, though personally the Count-Up system I think would be cool.

Likely I'll get the PHB, MM and GM, guide along with all the rest for the sake of collecting and reading. Though really, the only thing that I'd "want" to get right away is the Mines of Chaos, as I'm interested in seeing how they pull off their take of The Keep on the Border Lands (and to see how it meshes with their own HM4e Little Keep on the Border Lands).