Categories
Design

Hack100: Release Version vs Original Design Aims

I came into this project with a reasonably clear idea of what I wanted to achieve. Frustrated by the complexity of the most recent versions of my favourite d100 systems (most notably Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and RuneQuest), my objective was to compile a stripped-down d100 system that would allow me to adventure in those worlds with a minimum of in-game rules referencing.

With that overarching aim in mind, I set myself ten design goals for Hack100 back in a blog of March 2020. Here I’ll review the final product against those original ambitions.

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Categories
Releases

Finally! Release 1.00 of the Hack100 Rulebook

The cover of release 1.00 of the Hack100 rulebook.

And so, after 19 months, 45 blog posts and six work-in-progress versions, we finally arrive at release 1.00 of the Hack100 rulebook.

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In an upcoming blog, I’ll examine how the results stack up against the original design aims. But, overall, I’m pretty happy with the results, both in terms of the content and the presentation.

Categories
Optional Rules Tasks

Cheating Death and Avoiding Other Such Mishaps – Luck in Hack100

Savage Worlds has its “Bennies” that allow characters (and non-player characters) to re-roll unfavourable dice throws (or receive other ad hoc benefits) when things are going against them.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition has its (overly-complicated in my opinion) currencies of “Fortune”, “Fate”, “Resilience” and “Resolve” that characters can draw upon to re-roll dice, overcome adverse psychological effects and even avoid certain death.

Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition has its “Push” mechanic that allows failed skill tests to be re-rolled with the risk of additional consequences. It also offers an optional pool of Luck Points that characters can draw upon to tweak failed rolls.

Although these various mechanics all work in slightly different ways, they all have the same objective – to soften the consequences of unfavourable dice rolls on player characters.

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Categories
Health Optional Rules

Shocking Sights and Dark Deals: Insanity and Corruption in Hack100

Whilst a character’s Health in Hack100 reflects short-term variations in their physical and mental wellbeing, some games rely on tracking the longer-term deterioration of adventurers as they confront things that are best left alone. This includes the loss of sanity in horror games as characters are exposed to traumatic events or cosmic threats. It also covers the physical or spiritual corruption that results from dabbling in the darker arts.

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Categories
Releases

Hack100 Release 0.06 – With New Cover and Optional Rules

Here’s release 0.06 of the Hack100 rulebook. The most obvious addition is the new cover art that was introduced in an earlier blog. However, it also includes the first wave of optional rules, which have been added as an appendix. These are all non-essential to the core gameplay. Some add content that is useful for certain game genres. Others are rules or concepts that are commonly found in roleplaying games but which don’t necessarily align with the author’s vision for Hack100. However, some Referees may wish to incorporate them.

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Categories
Optional Rules Tasks

Question: How Much of an Advantage is “Advantage”? Answer: It Depends…

In recent role-playing games, a popular mechanic for making task rolls easier or more difficult is the concept of “Advantage and Disadvantage“. It is also sometimes known as “Bonus Dice and Penalty Dice“.

The idea is simple. When a character tries to perform an action that, due to the prevailing circumstances, is either easier or more difficult than usual, instead of rolling a single die they instead roll multiple dice. If the task is easier, they take the best result from the dice pool. If the task is more difficult, they take the worst. In d100 systems that use this mechanic (e.g. Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition), this typically only applies to the “tens” die; the “units” die is rolled normally.

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Categories
Optional Rules Player Characters

Dwarfs, Elves & Halflings (and Ducks, Aliens, etc.) in Hack100

Hack100’s core rules assume that player characters are human or human-like. However, in some game genres, particularly fantasy and science fiction, non-human characters may be an option.

The easiest way to accommodate non-human characters is by employing the same Modified Abilities and Innate Characteristics used for Non-Player Characters. 

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Categories
Releases

So, I Splurged on Some Cover Artwork…

In the early stages of this project, I planned to follow the approach of Whitehack 2nd Edition and not include any artwork in Hack100. However, as soon as I adopted the Old School Essentials inspired layout, which aims to confine all the information on a given topic to a single page or two-facing pages for easy in-game reference, it became clear that there would be gaps in the layout that needed to be filled.

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Categories
Releases

Hack100 Character Sheet

This week’s contribution is a simple character sheet.

It’s basic but functional, with space to record all the main aspects of a Hack100 character.

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Categories
Releases

Hack100 Release 0.05

And so we reach something of a milestone – the first release of a complete draft of the core rules.

Since the last release, I’ve added new chapters on “Improvement” and “Non-Player Characters” based on the recent blogs. An index and some artwork have also been included as finishing touches.

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