Through Thursday, July 30 we revive (for a third time!) the March 2016 HackMaster Bundle featuring HackMaster, the parody-turned-real FRPG introduced in the pages of the Knights of the Dinner Table comic. This revival promotes Kenzer’s new Kickstarter campaign for the HackMaster 25th Anniversary Edition. Sign up to get notified when the campaign launches!
HackMaster has one of the most unusual origins in the hobby. It first emerged in the late ’90s as a pure fiction, the system of choice for B.A. Felton and his enthusiastic players in the gaming magazine Shadis. In 2001, armed with an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons license from Wizards of the Coast, Kenzer and Company released HackMaster “4th Edition” – a not-quite-parody of the AD&D 1E/2E rules that captured the spirit of the game seen in the comics. (There were no prior editions; “4th” was part of the spoof). HackMaster won that year’s Origins Award for Game of the Year.
HackMaster evolved into a full-fledged, full-featured RPG, spawning more than 40 add-ons, supplements, and game aids. In 2011, as the original license was expiring, Kenzer started a long transition to a new version of HM. This “fifth edition” (unrelated to D&D Fifth Edition, which was still three years in the future) removes most of the parody aspects. The new game mechanics, written from scratch, incorporate the Honor, Skills, and Count-up systems from Kenzer’s 2007 Old West RPG Aces & Eights. And HackMaster got a new setting: the Kingdom of Kalamar, made popular in a long line of Kenzer supplements released in the D20 boom.
In a March 15 blog post titled “We Have Not Yet Begun to Hack,” Kenzer’s Jolly Blackburn announced a new 25th Anniversary Edition that would “take HackMaster to the next level! This anniversary edition holds even more options and rules-tweaks that allow for more flexibility and adventure, without sacrificing the grit and satisfaction of hacking your way from peasant to conqueror. HackMaster is a game of trials and challenges, where every inch of success is hard-fought, with death always lurking just around the corner. But this game is also about the hero’s journey, going from ordinary to exceptional. […] In HackMaster you don’t begin epic; the game becomes epic with you as it unfolds. HM XXV provides an experience that satisfies the core of your soul, knowing that your striving and struggling truly pays off in a glory that was fully earned.”
Ahead of the HM XXV Kickstarter that launches soon, this revived offer once again presents all three massive HackMaster Fifth Edition core books – the Player’s Handbook with the rules system, the GameMaster’s Handbook with additional rules and extensive advice, and the monumental Hacklopedia of Beasts monster manual. We also include the Frandor’s Keep setting and several adventures and supplements. Together they provide everything you need for a complete campaign using this remarkable Old School game.
Pay just US$12.95 to get all five titles in this revived offer’s Player Collection (retail value $57) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete 405-page HackMaster Player’s Handbook; two collections of priest spells, Zealot’s Guide: Book 1 and Book 2; and the adventures In the Realm of the Elm King and its sequel, Legacy of the Elm King.
And if you pay more than the threshold (average) price, which is set at $27.95 to start, you’ll level up and also get this revival’s entire Gamemaster Collection with three more titles worth an additional $95, including the HackMaster GameMaster’s Guide, the Hacklopedia of Beasts, and the campaign setting Frandor’s Keep.
Make sure all the knights at your dinner table get this revived March 2016 HackMaster offer before it vanishes again Thursday, July 30. (And sign up to get notified about the HackMaster 25th Anniversary Edition Kickstarter campaign.)
