FourthCore Alphabet

FourthCore Alphabet

The concept of hard core, dark and deadly adventuring is only one aspect of doing it old school, but it is one of my favorites. This excellent work, ostensibly by Sersa Victory, provides an excellent overview of everything FourthCore stands for. This is Dungeon Crawl material par excellence. But far from simply being an introduction to the Fourthcore style of gaming it is a useful tool for dungeon and campaign creation sure to bring a Black Sabbath of gaming to your table. As described on Lulu,



Fourthcore Alphabet is a reference guide and inspirational tool aimed at Dungeon Masters who are building and running dark, deadly dungeons. Each chapter spotlights a different element of fourthcore design, beginning with a short essay that describes how the element fits into the fourthcore aesthetic. These essays are followed by a table with which you can generate hundreds of examples using only your twenty-sided die. While this book uses the 4th Edition rules, every effort has been made to present the material in a way that makes it easily adaptable to other systems. DMs running gothic deathtrap dungeons in games like OSRIC or Wrath will find much to enjoy in this book.

I've written numerous entries on how old school is a state of mind not a rule system. FourthCore is proving my point in spades. Designed for 4e, but just as comfortable in any of the older systems, it distills a style of gaming that any grognard worth his salt would be proud of. I myself am adapting the approach to my Pathfinder games with great success and a PC kill count that has now exceeds two dozen. Mwuuaa Haa HA HAAAAA!!!

It has also generated lively after game discussions, players who are truly proud of their PCs who do survive and advance, an ever-increasing membership in our gaming club, and players who know the game better than ever before. They are taking the time to read, absorb and actually use the rules. The level of PC development, backstory and personal investment in a player character's life arc is also fun to watch.

So it's not all about killer GMing. As Gary himself said “The worthy GM never purposely kills players' PCs. He presents opportunities for the rash and unthinking players to do that all on their own.”

1e is Back!

For a limited time only ... Check this out!

Yep! WoTC is offering reprints of the original PHB, DMG and MM to help support the Gary Memorial, and earn a few bucks besides.

And you can check out my thread started in the New Releases section responding to the move here. Predictably my thread is getting very little traffic though. Nonetheless I made my plea. They can't say I didn't speak up. I'd email the staff again, but I have found WoTC staff to be not very helpful in dialoguing with customers. Do I think it will stick--no not really. And not for all the predictable marketing reasons you might imagine, but simply because I've been let down one too many times by the industry, and no I'm not just talking about WoTC.

Ah well, it feels good just to support the Gary Memorial. And who knows--they may surprise me.

Why HackMaster?

So all this edition reviewing and system analysis has had me reconsidering my preferences but it didn't take long to come back to HackMaster. Now don't get me wrong, there are lots of good games out there. Games I admire in more ways than one. But I always come back to HackMaster. Now, I'm an AD&D man, always have been--like I mentioned in my last post. But as I've explained before it's kind of important for me to play a game that is actively in print and supported.  And if you've followed my blog at all you know I've been back and forth over various different games; so though I can't say my search has been exhaustive it has been extensive. I've read so many rule systems, I'm beginning to feel like I'm having deja vu with some of them. ... "Haven't I read this before?"

Anyway I'm perusing the web reading HackMaster discussions in between re-reading my HackMaster rules old and new when I happen upon a discussion over on rpg.net. That's when I catch a post by Tori Bergquist that sums up alot of how it feels to get into HackMaster. I once posted that reading HackMaster made me feel like I was rediscovering gaming all over again. But Tori captures the feel in a way I didn't quite manage. So without further ado, I quote:

"For what it's worth, I'll chime in that I really like Hackmaster so far ---a related thread on the Hacklopedia of Beasts rapidly turned into an exercise in finding my copy of HMB I had bought a year or two ago, digging it out, and finally reading it. Then I ordered the module. Now I am puzzling my way through making various characters and marvelling at how much I feel like I am learning to play a Mirror Universe edition of D&D.

I really like that it looks suspiciously familiar (D&D) yet it surprises me at every turn with new and unusual turf for How to Do Things. This is probably the only D&Desque game out there where I really feel like I've fallen through the looking glass."

 

Through the looking glass indeed. Thanks Tori. (Emphasis mine)