18 thoughts on “Anyone done a high fantasy hack?”

  4. Toimu Feel free to suggest changes. I’m probably going to do a new iteration in a while to bring it back towards the normal playbook approach instead of the list of archetypes — unless others think that is a bad idea! I also need to put quite a bit more work into the setting and an adventure generator to go with the “dungeon” generator. However, it is slow going — I’m working with a couple of other folks on a diesel punk airship hack…and that is getting close to an official quickstart / playtest package!

  6. Eric Brunsell Everytime I come here, I find a few hacks I want to play! That diesel punk hack sounds fun!

    Blades in the Brokenlands looks good. I really like some of the ideas. When I said I want do to a D&D 5e hack, I really meant a Four Against Darkness hack. But turning BitD into a dungeon crawler seems to turn people away.

    I want a solo dungeon crawler with a party of 3-4 characters. 4AD is a bit too simple, and D&D 5e is a bit too complex.

  9. Eric Brunsell I’ve skimmed it.

    I would do Race the way BitD does Heritage.

    I love everything you’ve done under “Mechanics & Downtime”!

    I like how you let the players pick “Special Items” in character creation. I would consider “Expertise, Concentration, & Special Ability” to be guidelines.

    Still reading about “Archetypes” and “Crew Types”.

    Great work on “Dungeon Creation”! I need to read more.

  10. I have character load effect the engagment roll.

    If the party averages Heavy Load, -1d.

    If the party averages Light Load, +1d.

    If the party averages Standard Load, no effect.

  11. Toimu I wanted to have differing abilities by race, so I went with a selection of “racial traits” and complications. The types of races are fairly broad, so you can play almost any fantasy type race.

    I’m not sold on how I did archetypes. It gives a ton of flexibility, but also loses a bit of the flavor of well defined playbooks. I might create playbooks andlve the archetypes as an option in an appendix.

  12. Toimu I am also thinking about revising magic so that there are not so many different options. I like the flavor, but you and up with 10 playbooks just for spellcasters!

    If I do change that part, spellcasting itself will become much more flexible and defined by roleplaying, not as much by playbooks.

  13. Eric Brunsell I read more on your races, there are some really good ideas for skills! Pretty much every races had me thinking of a character I wanted to play!

  15. I would actually recommend getting away from race=species as a tactical decision in games. I don’t think it adds much and it certainly invites comparisons to some really weird stereotypes from a modern perspective

  16. Justin Ford I understand that, but the common trope in fantasy is that the “races” do have different attributes. Just like in a sci fi game, you would expect different types of aliens to play differently from humans. In addition, in high fantasy it isn’t about species. Homo sapiens is a species and different races are still the same species. However, an elf is a fae not a human.

  17. The problem comes with using the word race. Many fantasy authors used fantasy races to mirror some of their unfortunate stereotypes of real world human races.

    It’s potentially problematic when we continue to perpetuate that conclusion, that some races of people are biologically superior or inferior in various ways, in games today.

    Which isn’t to say you can’t have different intelligent fantasy creatures with different play styles, but I urge you to move away from the “race” angle.

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