Hackmaster stories?

[Pizzapizza73]

I'm new to dice rpgs but I've been wanting to try one for awhile. I've been reading the knights of the dinner table comics for years and finally decided to go get a copy of the hackmaster 5E players handbook. Waiting for the GM to get the first game ready but in the meanwhile have been looking for player stories to get a good idea of how the game can be played. All I've found so far are dnd and Pathfinder stories, which are still entertaining in their own right! Thanks to anyone who can help.

[Anxe]

I've found that KenzerCo's Forums are the place to go for Hackmaster stuff. While some of the people who play Hackmaster do frequent the OOTS Forums (notably Mark Hall the moderator), there aren't a lot. Additionally, almost all the people I've seen talking about Hackmaster here also post a decent amount on KenzerCo.

Their forums have a subforum for swapping stories. Take a look through the archives there?
http://www.kenzerco.com/forums/forum...ckMaster-Tales

There's also this Twitch account for GreyMarch that has a few Roll20 session uploads.
https://www.twitch.tv/greymarch2000/videos/all

[LibraryOgre]

Anxe is right that you'll want to check out the KenzerCo forums... where you'll also find me. It's not that you can't talk Hackmaster here... I'm a booster of it, and will talk your ear off (eyes out?), but there's not a big community around it.

That said, let me post some links to Hackmaster stuff I've put on my blog:

This is a short story set in Kalamar, not a Hackmaster log.

Here is my Hackmaster campaign log (that peters out because we stopped playing, for various reasons)

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
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12

And that's where we petered out.

In which I defend Hackmaster's "3D6 straight down" stat rolling method.

There's some miscellaneous talents and such in the Hackmaster talent on my blog, and I'm always happy to talk about the game.

[Pizzapizza73]

Thanks for the references and material everyone! I appreciate it greatly.

[bulbaquil]

Hackmaster is fun, and is designed in such a way that you can play a character with middling stats. People are just scared of one-digit attributes for some reason. The main thing to realize is that Hackmaster protagonists aren't "a cut above the rest" like D&D/Pathfinder assumes. They are "the rest", and distinguish themselves in the course of their adventures by training.

In my experience, combat and initiative tracking seems daunting at first but is more intuitive than it looks - although I do recommend bringing a pocket calculator if you're not adept at mental addition. Most combats I've seen lasted between about 40 and 60 seconds of game-time.

[LibraryOgre]

Possibly THE biggest factor in combat is TOP and Trauma saves. That undead do not have a TOP is part of what makes them so scary.

[Lacco]

What is TOP?

[LibraryOgre]

What is TOP?

Threshhold of Pain. If you take a hit equal to about 40% of your HP, you have to roll a Trauma save... under 1/2 your Con on a d20. Fail, and your down for many seconds. Roll a 20, and you're out for minutes. Someone who is TOPped is still alive and probably making noise (screaming in pain), but they're also vulnerable to a Coup de Grace... and since thieves, multiclass thieves, assassins, and some priests are fast with the CdG, the old ToP 'n' Chop can involve a fighter knocking them down and a thief making sure they don't get up.