#whitehack

[ostrichmonkey-games]

✨ and/or 📖?

✨ A game I wish more people were talking about.

While I've been working on Unnamed Furry Crime Game, I've been surveying the Forged in the Dark landscape for research, and finally got around to reading Copperhead County, and oh this game is so good. It's not a massive divergence from core FitD mechanics, but the stuff it touches on and remixes are so good. It's been wildly influential in how I've been reworking a lot of FitD tech.

One particular highlight is how Entanglements have been transformed into Troubles. Troubles are an umbrella for problems of all scale (personal, citywide, faction, etc), but are turned into clocks that key off of different "attributes" (like how much cash you have, trauma, wanted levels, etc). I cannot understate how good it is.

If anyone reading this is interested in FitD design, highly recommend Copperhead County!

📖 My favorite class or playbook from a game.

The Wise from Whitehack has been hugely influential in how I approach OSR/OSR-related design. Whitehack is, probably my favorite of the more "traditional" OSR games (and I hesitate to call it traditional really, there's a lot of cool stuff in there), and the Wise is my favorite of its core classes. The Wise is the "magic-user" archetype in many senses, but it is super flexible.

The gist is you come up with a "miracle" you can perform (exorcism, bombs, fire magic, really anything that's normally impossible) and when you want to do something related to that miracle, you pay a cost of HP to "cast" it. The cost can be negotiated based on constraints and situations bonuses and whatnot.

The Wise's miracle mechanic formed the backbone for Knacks in my own house-system I've been running Cess and Citadel with.

[magusmacabre]

SIGRID My newest WhiteHack/DnD/TTRPG character design! She was only slightly inspired by Skyrim (*cough* LOVE YOU UTHGERD *cough*), and I felt like drawing another buff woman again for obvious reasons. If you can't read my handwriting:

Viking King

Woman

Tanky/Warrior

Hates/Scared of magic

Doesn't say much

Fought for her title

Wears lots of fur >:3

GIGANTIC! (6'8 ft?)

Enjoy, idk how to write an outro for this one, so just imagine I disappear in a puff of smoke or something dawygdwayudw

[not-jack-daw]

new map, inspired by whitehack and roguelikes + red dead redemption and the rural american southwest

[foxypiquero]

Macro-Monstrosities of Whitehack pt.1

A brief preface: Whitehack is an indie TTRPG built off the original edition of The Most Popular Roleplaying Game(tm) but doesn't let that limit it. It's genre agnostic (to a point), incredibly simple, and incredibly powerful. I heavily recommend it if you want a light-weight rules system. This will deal with a singular aspect of the game.

Alright, hear me out: maybe using macro-characters could help make RPG mass-combat viable again (not a PIA). Think about it, that where the hobby started after all, and individual combat is just an intersquad fight. But what happens when you want to get bigger? Well we have macros and scale for one and we also have officers. So lets break it down.

The scale:

If you have your character at the head of a squad of ragtag followers it's probably just better to break down combat into phases (ex: declaration, magic, ranged, move, melee) but what happens when you have say: a platoon or company? We'll follow this wizards and muskets world just for variety.

The standard organizational level on the field should be a scale 0 macro, got it? Good. Why is it randomly generated? Reasons can be anywhere from officer competency, to disease, to how well they were first supplied. Congrats now all you have to do is adjust the scale of combat time and map scale and there you go, easy 1x1 army groups as macros.

But what about wizards and the wise? Now this is where things get weird. On the individual level, our little platoon is a 10x2 enemy that has 1 attack at turn that does 10d6 at say 150ft range. Think about some popular spells from other games, even some of those really big spells only really threaten half that group. For the wise to be using magic they should be their own battle group of wizards firing volleys or pooling their health together to upcast a mass sleep spell (and this is why an individual player may be small to bug size in the face of 100 angry fellas.)

Officers:

Now here's the tricky part. Officers aren't usually the best, they're either born into it or buy into it, for these guys roll a save after a crit to see if they fall in battle. But what about you? This is honestly up to the GM, at platoon level it might be a more powerful attack, maybe d6+2, at the company level? Not so much (￣ ￣|||) (yeah I know breaking this to players sucks.) PCs are assumed to fall or be captured last, if you want to be more deadly about it assume you can get downed by that lucky shot from earlier.

Troop quality is also dependent on level. A higher level unit is made of veterans and, at lower levels of organization at least, have more competent and wizened officers and NCOs. They should have a morale score or make a charisma or will save of some sort in case they meet a situation that calls for it like damage or mass illusions. Money at this level is handled in thousands so keep that in mind if a PC is fronting the cash for upgraded gear; 2000 cr just gives a platoon the muskets going by ROW.

Special Abilities:

This is where good judgement needs to be practiced. How does cavalry move? Can they do a passing attack? Can they do a split-move ranged attack? How do they get stuck in? Eventually you will get questions like this that the standard classes will no be able to cover and the GM will have to make a call. Whatever they decide here will be a new rule going forward so please workshop the rules first.

And that's it. :P Well not really, this is just humanoid v. humanoid and not Giants & Guard Regiments. Eventually something will get me to think at this scale again! So uh good luck with the rest of that till then!

Piqu signing off ∑d(°∀°d)

[art-from-ao]

I've been working on puppet designs for my Whitehack crew the past couple days!

From left to Right:

Live Oak: Wood Elf, STRONG Maria Herralto: Human, WISE Ezra Harlow: Human, WISE Jasper Stella: Half Elf, DEFT Runt: Centaur, DEFT

[thegaminggang]

[cyanomys]

I’m absolutely OBSESSED with Spire/Heart by Rowan Rook & Decard. The setting is gloriously weird and fucked up in a way that is just familiar enough to feel cathartic, but strange enough not to hit too close to home; it’s the perfect place to explore the darkest depths of people’s souls (sometimes literally in Heart) but also perfect for violent cathartic eat-the-rich romps. Even better, IMO, is the system that pumps blood through the whole thing. It’s heartbreakingly simple and elegant, and genuinely unique (not a D&D or pbta game etc.) It’s a resource management system, that is somehow still very storygamey, but unlike a lot of storygames the consequences are very defined. It hits a weird sort of balance between OSR and story game vibes IMO (especially Heart.)

I also have recently picked up Whitehack, but that might break the rules since it’s loosely compatible with other B/X D&D OSR content. I’m enjoying its blank simplicity; the way it merges narrative and OSR play (but a much heavier lean towards the OSR than say Heart,) and quite opposite my former example leaves almost everything up to the imagination. I have a D&D setting without a game….i started writing it years ago for 5e and then realized it was more gritty and grimy and unique than was appropriate for that game. Whitehack is a definitely contender.

Tell my some of your favorite tabletop rpgs lately! Weird ones, fun ones, ones that feel comfortable, satisfying, or exciting. The only rule is no pathfinder or D&D. I design games for a living. I'm aware of them. I want you to tell me something outside the behemoth.

[conversecompanion]

Writing fanfic of my ttrpg campaign and posting it on ao3 😔

[ostrichmonkey-games]

The Ostrichmonkey Hack

Hey, its out!

Behold, the Basic Rules iteration of my personal NSR/OSR ruleset.

This ruleset came to life when I needed something to run an Into the Cess & Citadel campaign, and decided to take a stab at cobbling something together. It ended up being a mix of different N/OSR conventions I liked, plus some other twists to fit my own personal preferences.

Fundamentally, its a "roll under your attribute" system, and should be broadly compatible with your favorite NSR/OSR/minimalist rulesets and adventures. Made with fantasy-adventure stuff in mind, but with some bending, could probably be made to work with other genres.

So let's get into what's inside.

This first release covers the Basic Rules;

Classless character creation

Rolling the dice

Items

Characters have no defined class, and are made up of a Knack and a Domain. Knacks cover any special abilities and skill you might have, and are activated by spending attribute points (and typically circumvent rolling the dice - spend the points and do the thing!). Knacks are specifically inspired by how Whitehack's Wise class casts "miracles". Domains are broad fields of knowledge and understanding.

Like I said, rolling the dice involves rolling under your attribute score, but there is also a way to apply full/mixed successes to a roll. These rules also cover things like combat. Enemies are immune to damage unless you can target a weakness, meaning that the bulk of combat is about trying to discover and exploit an enemy's weakness.

For the items section of the ruleset, I ended up adapting some of the mechanics I'm developing for Stampede Wasteland, specifically the abstracted resources and money. Gear is also one of the main ways you can change your stats by altering everything from HP to your attributes.

The long term plan for this ruleset is to continuously update and tinker with it, adding in extra subsystems, mechanics, and whatever else I feel is interesting at the time. There's no set schedule for this, so expect updates eventually and whenever.

Right now, you can pick up a text only version of the Basic Rules, which will always remain free (scroll down to the bottom of the page to find the demo files, including character sheet), and then the paid files will be getting the major updates.

First planned update is to finish up the Archetype rules to introduce a class system that can replace or be used alongside knacks. So look for that down the road.

Anyways, go check it out!

[hifi-walkman]

This is a great in depth analysis of the OSR scene, if someone had the time and resources to do this with all of RPG gaming, I think it would be incredibly useful.

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.

As last few days I have been talking about rpgs with @thedungeonguy and @prokopetz, thought of sharing it as a thanks for very inspiring insights and ideas.

[indiepressrevolution]

Now at IPR: The Electrum Archive - Issues 01 & 02

“On Orn the pauper dreams of a liquid, black as starless night. The power of gods, distilled into midnight ink.”

The Electrum Archive is a science-fantasy RPG zine series inspired by the worlds of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Dark Sun and Ultraviolet Grasslands. It uses simple core rules inspired by other OSR games like Cairn, Mausritter and Whitehack to quickly get you started playing.

https://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/The-Electrum-Archive-Issue-01-Print-PDF.html

https://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/The-Electrum-Archive-Issue-02-Print-PDF.html

[pleaseburger]

what are some favorite ttrpgs of yours?

HEART: The City Beneath is my top favourite, its so weirdly fantastical in its horror and its very easy for the GM to run. and you want to unlock like every class ability ever as a player. theres like a hundred more things I like about it but Ive talked about it lots before

Ironsworn: Starforged is my go-to scifi game, I used to play it solo but Ive played it more as a gm with players or just in group coop now. its awesome for just like, mandalorian or firefly esque stories

MÖRK BORG changed how I read ttrpg books

ARC:DOOM helped me be a better GM more than any other game

Tales From the Loop reminded me that I do like *playing* rpgs and not just running them all the time, actually

Whitehack made me appreciate what people like about classic editions of D&D and informs so much about my own little hacks and designs

Songbirds 2e was the first RPG product I ever purchased and Songbirds 3e is my favourite fantasy adventure game. its so enchanting

[olitheworm]

I cannot contain him any longer. He has breached his home colony's cavern and is out and about. --🦠✨️

Here is Doctor Slime, my table top dice rolling game character (Whitehack system). He is an amoeboid. Do not be fooled by his name, he is only distantly related to slimes. And do not think for a second that his magic is what makes him a doctor... no. He heals with the power of 11 intelligence and an advantage roll to bind your wounds when you get knocked out. His magic is highly corrosive and upsetting. Chaotic even.

This is not the last you'll see of him or.. his backstory because I cannot stop developing it.

[sunflowers666]

ok im gonna read whitehack

[hellyeahheroes]

Entitlement of the Rich

Recently the whole RPG community has been shaken by a very convincing leak concerning neat year’s upcoming new edition of Dungeons & Dragons. The leak is a draft of updated Open Gaming License, that details which parts of the 3rd and 5th editions of the system could be used by other publishers, free of charge. This OGL is used to allow 3rd party publishers like Kobold Press, MCDM, Green Ronin or the Dungeon Dudes to publish their own content using the form of d&d rules. While the game mechanics cannot be copyrighted, this OGL allows other publishers to use terminology and reference things like classes or monsters from official WotC products. Most prominently, it has been used by Paizo to develop both of their big games - Pathfinder and Starfinder - that make them currently second biggest company on the market and Wizard’s biggest competitor.

The leaked version of OGL 1.1 contains language that would do a lot of potentially extremely damaging things. It talks about “authorised” version of OGL, which could potentially be used to bypass perpetural, irrevocaible nature of OGL. Theoritically, by declaring previous versions “unathorized”, WotC force everyone using it to switch to OGL 1.1. Worst case scenario it could even affect unrelated games, liek Traveller and FATE Core, that designed their own OGLs by basically coping WotC’s OGL.

Moreover, the language used in OGL 1.1 also forces people using it to report their profits to WotC and pay off 25% of revenue if you made over 750 thousand on the product based on d&d, while giving the company right to redistribute and resell all products based on their license with no financial compansation or even recognition of original publisher. It also expand what is considered as licensed this way to everything deriverate of d&d, including OSR games based on older editions, like Dungeon Crawl Classic or the Whitehack.

There is a lot of debate over how legitimate this leak is. Whenever it is not a hoax. And if not, if it is actually what Hasbro and Wizards’ plan to do. Some claims in the document, like one giving WotC rights to all content based on D&D across all media, something OGL is not designed to cover, leads credibility to a theory that if it is legitimate, it is merely a first draft by executives, that no one from legal department has touched yet. Because a lot of the things it tries to do would probably get demolished in the court of law.

I subscribe to the “executives’ christmas wishlist no lawyer looked at yet” idea. Because I could see a corproate execs not realizing how such thing is bound to drive people away in huge numbers. A process we do see already happenning, with many fans declaring switch to other systems, boycott of WotC products or sailing under jolly roger, if you know what I mean. Only a big, rich guy in a suit who doesn’t actually work on anything the company is selling would act as if the company could try to backstab major part of the community and fans would stay with them for “brand loyalty”.

It does fit a certain pattern I noticed among billionairies and corporations that I do not think is talked about before. Such things as Elon Musk bitter anger when people massively leave Twitter or merely stop posting, culminating in him making it harder to delete your account but also getting it deleted if you don’t regurally log in (the conservative idea people will be converted to right if you force them to interact with fascists without ability to retaliate nonwithstanding). Or Netflix acting suddenly upset people are sharing their accounts for convenience, as if that wasn’t one of intended uses originally. Why it would cost all major contributors to global warming literally pennies to stop destorying the planet, and instead they spend much larger sums trying to discredit the whole concept of climate change.

At some point the rich forget that they’re supposed to try to get our time and money. They feel entitled to it. Once you adopt this mindset, all things click in place. Of course Elon Musk is mad people are leaving Twitter, he thinks we owe it to him to stay on his platfor. Of course Hasbro and Netflix cannot entertain the idea that people would jsut drop them, in their perspective we should be gratefull they allow us to pay for their shit. Of course polutters would rather spend more money to keep polutting than less money to stop, they think they simple deserve to not have anyone tell them how to spend.

I find this very eye-opening as a way to reframe actions of the rich capitalists. A lot of idiotic shit they do makes much more sense, once you realize they don’t do it out of just simple greed, but because they geniuelly beleive thy’re “too big to fail” and thus the world should just fold the way they demand. And it is why it’s so important to oppose them at every opportunitty. You give these fucks an inch, they’ll take your country.

-Admin