#black hack

I love it when RPGs get hyperspecific. This is Slipgate Chokepoint (2020), a supplement for the Stay Frosty RPG, by Andrew Walter (who also does the gnarly art, along with Ambika Kirkland) and Paul Cronin. Stay Frosty is based on the Black Hack and is clearly in love with sci-fi military action movies like Aliens, Predator, that sort of thing. Slipgate Chokepoint takes that framework and applies its own love interest: DOOM (and, to a lesser extent, Quake and other FPS videogames, but mostly DOOM).

Stay Frosty is pretty fast and furious, and Slipgate not only follows suit, but ups the ante. There’s just one type of character (the Ranger, which is basically a generic space marine). Weapons are ridiculous. Armor is color coded. There are rules for tension and special stunts and, hilariously, gibbing (Like in DOOM, when you hit something so hard it just flies apart into bloody pieces? That can happen here, to monsters and also to you). Basically, if you can think of a way to tweak 1e D&D rules in order to reflex the action and aesthetics of 90s FPS videogames, its probably already in here.

Marcia B, creator of Fantastic Medieval Campaigns, had made a very interesting analysis of how various OSR games take from different ruleset, grouping them into several clusters - Faithful to TSR-Era D&D, Influenced by Modern D&D, Hacks of the Black Hack, Into the Odd and Knave and an interesting group Old-School Baroque.

I personally enjoy one-player RPGs. They can be a little weird for some, certainly, but as a Goblin in a world of elves and men, it is nice to sit down now and again, flex my creative storytelling muscles, and match them against fate in a game of singular minded striving. 

Now, you can play Sword & Backpack as a singular player. It is quite easy. You split your D20 into 10 and 10, rolling 11 or above as a success and 10-below as a failure. You have to create your own setting and your own obstacles, but that is all part of the freedom of it. 

But as a RPG Hermit, I have played a few other systems I would like to recommend. Each has its benefits and drawbacks, and depending on what you want in your Hermit games, each might suit your desires. The ones I find most helpful are “the Basic Fantasy RPG 3rd Ed,” and “The Black Hack” - “Stormbringer” and “Ironsworn”. 

“The Basic Fantasy RPG” is an Old School Renaissance game, emulating the mechanics of older Dungeons & Dragons editions. It is free online, which is fantastic, and has a number of online adventures to run in various settings [it is also easy to run Old D&D adventures that are often free online as well]. It has the simple four iconic classes and races, spells to use for spellcasting in its Vancian system, and a series of tables to create random encounters. Mechanically, you roll your six D&D stats, then when you perform a check, you roll under the number on the stat to succeed; while maintaining the combat mechanic from D&D of overcoming an Armor Class to hit an enemy. Its clearly defined numerical lines make it possible to play alone, with its drawback being rolling for the monster and tending to have more of a mechanical “video game” feel than a “story crafting” feel. I recommend for anyone who wants to have a quick adventure all to themselves with minimal hassle and maximum “huzzah!”.

For those uncomfortable with rolling for the enemy, I recommend “The Black Hack”, which is also free online. The Black Hack was put together by David Black and has the same “roll under” mechanic as the Basic Fantasy RPG; but replaces the combat mechanic of D&D with its own Black-Hack Roll-Under system. The mechanics become more uniform in the Black Hack and make it easier to arbiter your own games. The Black Hack also comes with its own miniature bestiary, spells, and mechanics for various classes; and for the most part, it can be easily run with the supplements and adventures of the Basic Fantasy RPG and older D&D adventures. 

“Stormbringer” is a little bit more complicated than Basic and the Black Hack, but for those looking for a more Dungeons & Dragons sort of experience, it is a good choice. It runs off of the Basic Role Playing System, currently in use by Runequest. Character creation is a bit complicated, dedicated to dolling out various statistics for various feats - but those who want something more D&D adjacent won’t feel out of place. Each stat falls within a percentage scale - essentially denoting the odds of success on a one-hundred point scale. The player then rolls a d100 to try to roll under the necessary stats for a particular action. Stormbringer is easy to convert over other old adventures and even Basic adventures, simply taking the 20 point stats of D&D or Basic and multiplying them by 5 to get the percentile. Once again, the roll-under mechanic enables single player play, and with a little Black Hack mixed in, one need not even roll for villains. Its drawback is its statistically heavy nature and the need to prepare materials ahead of time; even with short cuts, character creation took me 2 hours my first try. The benefit of Stormbringer though is in its setting, which comes pre-stocked with content and challenges based on the Stormbringer Novels; with adventures online for free. I recommend this for those looking for a more comparable game to that of Dungeons & Dragons in statistical heft, intentionality, and long term play. 

Lastly, there is Ironsworn. Ironsworn is truly unique in that it involves its own mechanics, its own world, and its own special tables for generating an adventure. It even comes with instructions on single player. Ironsworn has taken the hermit community by storm, and rightly so. It is the most comparable experience to the feelings, thought processes, and striving of playing Dungeons & Dragons with a group. It has a three dice system, in which two d10s are rolled against a d12 - how many of the dice roll above whatever the D12 rolled determines a full success, a partial success with consequences, and a complete failure. Its character stats are used to boost the d10 rolls when completing a task related to a stat. It is used for all actions, including combat - paired with an interesting combat mechanic involving momentum, allowing a player to continue striking so long as they succeed. I recommend Ironsworn for anyone who is looking to have a genuinely holistic “one-player” RPG experience, with all the detail and intense thought that comes with that. 

I would say it's kinda clickbait-y for BH to barely be in the show because he's often at the forefront of teaser images or thumbnails or literally anything villainous. Heck, even when Flug took over for the Orientations, Black Hat was still in the thumbnail. The teaser images for Victor and Val were so misleading because BH is in almost all of them and he's there for like five minutes, more-or-less. What bs is that.

Say all you want him being the boss, the boss of any company does not just sit in their office and do pretty much nothing. I mean, imagine if you never saw your manager or boss inside of the building. That's a terrible manager/boss because they have no clue what's going on with their operation. Black Hat is a terrible boss and not in any weird "good" way. Somehow, Alan made a cartoon character feel like he's there to collect a paycheck XD

Two New Products in Webstore

Two new products have hit the UK webstore today! The Bats of Saint Abbans written by Richard Marpole and Dancing with Bullets Under a Neon Sun by Apollyon Press. Check them out on the webstore here: Check out all the juicy pics! Dancing With Bullets Under A Neon Sun The Bats of Saint Abbans

You can purchase this Harley Quinn design as a sticker, on a mask, on a laptop sleeve, on a hydro flask and on a variety of t-shirts as well as on many other things!