Compare and Contrast with Old School Hack

Here are some comparisons to help see what changes I made in the move between Old School Hack and Fictive Hack.

• Advancement is expected to get to the teens before you need more than the basic game.
  • You can improve your talents, so if you get all 5 of your base talents and improve on average each one once, that’s 10 slots available for talents from other templates; 20th level before you hit a talent max.
    • Of course, you don’t want every upgrade on every talent, so that’s where we’re likely to need the Campaign book for really successful long-running games.
  • You can spend Attribute points on lots of stuff instead of Attributes, so that won’t prove to be a ceiling.
  • Let’s say you hit that ceiling. You can spend a level’s worth of advancement on buying a new health level. So, that’s about level 28 before you run out of room to advance; if you get talents with lots of expansion potential, higher.
  • Conclusion: Basic is all you need. The Campaign book just adds more fun. Much like Basic D&D and Advanced D&D, instead of Basic and Expert D&D.

• No more d12. Why not? I’m thinking of someone new to gaming sitting down at the table, and getting confused about which die to roll. (It happened in a couple of our sessions.) The game is simpler with just 1 kind of die, and I don’t think the loss of diversity outweighs the convenience.
• Armor reduces damage. I also added “Medium” armor.
• There are three kinds of talents; open, restricted, and exclusive. All talents are not created equal.
• Toned down player narrative control. Instead of spending Awesome Points to generate items and NPCs as a protected player power, now the player has to negotiate with the DM. It can still be done, but only through the DM, instead of around the DM.
• Revamped base templates. The original 7 are represented in the 15 templates in Fictive Hack, but they’ve all been heavily adapted to fit my play style better.
• Expanded range of templates. An additional 8 templates increase the options players have, without being too overwhelming in the basic game.
• Firearms. Blackpowder guns are available. And explosives!
• Some flexibility in combat has shifted around. For example, characters can spend 2 Awesome Points to strike fleeing foes, and 1 Awesome Point to change their action in the round. However, I toned down some of the more ambiguous stuff in the talents, like Exploit Weakness and the elf’s nancy “cool move” talent. I got rid of “Throw” as it was “Push” against a single target, and also opened up several combat moves to use more attributes and let the player choose which one to use. This simplifies it; “I use my [favorite attribute that applies] for impeding and pushing.”
• The original is landscape instead of portrait, with teensy tiny type (I’m guessing 6 point in some places.) And on top of that, sometimes it’s gray, so it is even harder to read. Mine is 11 point except in some tables where it drops to 10.
• System for intimidation. Because it comes up all the time.
• Changed the name of “guards” to “toughs” because that’s more accurate. Most actual guards are minions, right? It’s confusing.
• Suggested difficulty levels for tasks, instead of random difficulties.
• Characters can level individually, or if they choose to level as a table, they all pay into a pool to level instead of each character having to chip in their share.
• Overlay templates allow a character to start with two templates; so you can have a race-as-class, or race-and-class, in the same game with no conflict. Also, spellcasters can have other templates too; you can have a wizard thief, or a wizard inventor, or a wizard noble, or a wizard fighter; and this is fun for the cleric too! Cleric knight, cleric hunter, cleric musketeer, cleric scholar, cleric zealot…
• Crippling! Characters can be permanently injured by severe wounds. Perverse as this is, in my experience, it adds awesome to the game when that danger is in the background.
• Different tone. I fell in love with Old School Hack with its breezy enthusiasm. However, that’s not where I live. I bring a different tone and style, but I think my approach is also fun and awesome–just different. For a sample, check out the description of the game and what makes it distinctive and cool. Then read his version. Both valid, both awesome, very different tone.
• I drop names for levels and character concepts. Text replaces pictures for talent descriptions.
• I have an expanded concept of how to use the adventuring motives, and attach an optional Awesome Point economy to it.
• No niche protection. You could have 3 people playing clerics, and end up with 3 very different clerics. If you need niche protection, add it at the table; it should not be hard-wired in the system.
• Added “swarm” as a monster category.
• Changed the root concept with magic items.
• Greatly expanded ways the DM is counseled to put Awesome Points in the bowl.
• Expanded usefulness for shields.
• Trim, tidy, fun rules for a parrying weapon.

Anyway, that’s enough of a contrast for now. What compares? The Awesome Point economy, order and use of the combat round, attributes and their basic function, arenas and weapons, advancing in levels through spending Awesome Points. I think the games are still very near each other in many ways. I just need a different flavor for some key elements.

My thanks continues to go out to Kirin Robinson; he’s a great guy, he’s encouraged me to continue working on this, and he’s even given me permission to release hard copies of this book (as well as the free .pdfs) when it’s done. None of this madness would be possible on my end without the inspiration and chassis he built, and it is my pleasure to continue to build on it.