Game Spotlight: The Black Hack

I have been wanting to review this game for a while now, as it is one of my favorites. However, if I am to do a proper review I should tell you a bit about my background.

I was born in November, 1989 and as such, I missed a lot of the old school dungeon crawling that was happening back in the 80's. A lot of the older systems as a whole don't really appeal to me, though I like the sentiment behind them. I'm sure a huge part of it is the generation of gaming that I stem from, all those charts found in the older editions of D&D seem a bit overwhelming at times. Now I say these things not as an attack on the Old School Renaissance, different people have different tastes and styles. Instead I bring this up because, although I didn't really grasp the older RPGs I found the core concepts behind them to be wonderful, with a strong emphasis on exploration and creativity, I just couldn't understand the way the rules functioned.

Enter: The Black Hack. A simple rule system with that old school vibe, but many modern gaming influences and twists. I bought it on a whim and haven't looked back. It's a simple and fantastic game that is complete in about 20 pages. You can easily print it off for reference too, which is always nice. I like it enough that I've even produced my own material for it.

The system itself is a simple one, characters have 6 attributes in the form of Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. When they wish to complete a task they simply roll a 20-sided die and try to roll under the relevant attribute. This simple mechanic takes up the core of the gameplay and much revolves around this concept. Monsters only roll for damage, with players rolling the relevant attribute to defend themselves.

There are four classes to choose from: Warrior, Conjurer, Thief, and Cleric. They cover your basic concepts found in most old school dungeon crawls and each class description is broken down into a simple one-sheet layout. The list of available spells is nice and straightforward as well. The Black Hack also uses some more modern mechanics, the most notable being the Advantage and Disadvantage system found in 5th Edition D&D.

The presentation is nice, done in black and white for easy printing. There is almost no art-work but solid layout and easy to navigate pages.

Quite possibly my favorite thing about the system is the amount of content other publishers are putting out. For just a dollar there are fantastic class and race expansions, just for starters.

If you have an interest in old school gaming but want to keep it streamlined and straight-forward,

you can check out The Black Hack here!