The Indie/Zine RPG Guide Part III: A Grim Hack

A Grim Hack (From Monster at my Desk)

Resource Page here on itch.io 

$12 from Exalted Funeral or PWYW on itch.io 

I snagged A Grim Hack on a lark, during one of several random "that looks interesting" expeditions in to Exalted Funeral's amazing webstore. Honestly, after reading it the first time I more or less forgot about it and stuck it on a shelf until recently when I got a free code for the book and resources over at playrole.com, which prompted me to dig it out again and explore it a bit more. Here's what I discovered.

What it is: A Grim Hack is nakedly straight up in its goal: to provide a slim alternative rulebook the Zweihander Grim & Perilous Adventures, which is in turn an unabashed retroclone of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (1st or 2nd edition, I am not sure which). So in theory the goal of A Grim Hack is to provide an easy ruleset that I suppose could work as a substitution for sourcebooks and material from either of its related systems.

The Rules: A Grim Hack is an incredibly dense summary of the core conceits of the Zweihander/Warhammer mechanical expressions. You have eight stats, a percentile resolution mechanic, skills, professions, ancestries (which are basically personality traits), lots of combat rules, and a dense but useful magic system. It hints at other ways to use the rulebook. 

A Grim Hack is also an unabashed "basic rules only" overview. You will need to go to the itch.io page linked above if you want the stuff a GM will need to actually run the game (monsters, NPC rules, a scenario). You could probably use the other books it is a condensed clone of as resources, but the GM PDF supplements really do help. I rather wish that A Grim Hack had published a second volume with these rules in print, but it looks like for now they are on PDF only through itch.io.

The Setting: not a single whiff of setting detail, outside of what you make of it, with some hinting that A Grim Hack would make for a fine medieval life simulator (and I think it would). It talks a bit about games without magic, or games with rare magic, and that's about it.

The game has some decent black and white art, ranging from "zine quality-okay" to decently evocative, such as the cover. A couple illustrations fall in to the "back of the high school notebook" category, but it has no impact on the product's presentation, which is emphatically about cataloging a set of extremely condensed rules.

Support: exclusively on itch.io, where several pay-what-you-want PDFs can be found with some mundane and fantastical monsters, NPC design rules and a scenario. 

In the end, A Grim Hack stands out as being distinctly unlike a lot of other digest size zine RPGs in that its mechanically complex and dense, surprisingly so for the size of the rules at 40 pages. But, as the developer freely admits, his goal was to have a ruleset that he could pull out which did not scare players away with 400-500 page rulebooks.

Unfortunately I am not well versed in any of the base systems A Grim Hack riffs from, so I do not know if its works well as a substitution rulebook or not. It definitely seems like it can stand on its own two feet, if you download the free resources to provide GM content.

Who Should Get This? I suggest that if you are in the same boat as the author, and like the mechanical style of Warhammer/Zweihander but would rather have a 40 pages rulebook than a 400 page rulebook then you might like this. Alternatively, if you want a gritty, surprisingly deep (for 40 pages) character and combat system, and want to run your own weird medieval campaign then this may be up your alley. 

Up Next: Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells

Zweihander Revised - the Retail Edition

I was shocked to discover two copies of Zweihander Revised sitting on the shelf at my local Barnes & Noble, truly something that I would ordinarily never expect --and with B&N being bought by a hedge fund that is putting a guy in charge on the record for wanting to cut down on the "hard to sell" books, unlikely to be a thing in the future, either.

Anyway, I'd only been acquainted with the POD version previously, so was shocked to see such a pleasant, high-quality bound tome, with ribbon, full color interior and incredibly nice design qualities for a paltry $65 so I grabbed a copy. You should look for a copy of this edition if you can, it's well worth it. I might plan to actually run a game soon, as the grim and perilous standards of Zweihander suit my gaming mood a lot more these days than the happy and heroic form of D&D 5E. This is also a good version of the game for fans of the system (like myself) from the old Warhammer 1E and 2E days who have never cared much for the Games Workshop Warhammer fantasy setting as such....liked the aesthetics if you will, but not the execution.

Five Genres That Game X Can Handle (But You Might Not Have Thought It Could)

There's a tradition among some gamers to find a game they like, then change it utterly and irrevocably. "This is the fantasy game I want...let me just modify the rules until my houserule index is longer than the rulebook." Or, "This is an amazing world and setting for fantasy, but I think these rules would be much more interesting if I modded it out for my dystopian future SF idea I have."

This list is not about that; it's about pointing out some games that actually provide a sound structure (without modification) for running some alternative genres that you wouldn't necessarily expect to see in the game's advertising. No rules changes necessary! No elaborate system hacks required. This list eschews game systems that traditionally brag about their multi-genre emulation. Here goes:

White Star is Actually a Really Good Mecha Anime Game

White Star Galaxy Edition isn't just a decent OSR space opera game. I turns out there are plenty of rules for giant mecha, their pilots, talking and transforming robots, plucky sidekicks, and any other number of genre tropes that you will find fit comfortably in your own emulation of Gundam, Armored Trooper Votoms or Robotech. White Star has you covered!

Traveller is a Perfect System for Lovecraftian Horror

Although you could cheat a bit by simply grabbing Cthonian Stars, which is an actual emulator for science fiction horror tainted by the mythos, the truth is that Traveller has all of the necessary bells and whistles to pull this off. Indeed, the fact that Traveller traditionally encourages an extra or customized statistic by race allows you to effortlessly add a Sanity score to your UPP without ay need to modify the mechanic. The rules for creating alien denizens are just another fancy way of creating terrifying flora and fauna in your mythos-tainted Travellerverse.

Call of Cthulhu is An Ideal Play-It-Straight Historical Emulator

Not only does Call of Cthulhu have nearly endless supplements focusing on different locales and time periods, it's designed to be a realistic game from the ground up, and there's a general agreement among most CoC Keepers that the best way to run the game is to "play it straight" for as long as possible before introducing the horror and ramping up the sanity meter. Indeed, if you want to simply eschew any real need for anything other than the horror of the human condition, in any time period you like, Call of Cthulhu has got you covered.

13th Age Is a Secret Super Hero RPG

The core conceit of 13th Age is "larger than life fantasy heroes who are at the center of the story," and it works exceedingly well. You could, with no actual mechanical changes, reskin the base classes and create a perfect emulator for super hero gaming. Seriously! Take a look and think about it. Weapons are less important in objective terms, but rather in effect terms. Abilities in the system are named but not defined beyond their mechanical relevance. The GM's side of the table is ridiculously easy. This might sort of break the rule up top about not changing the mechanics or setting, but if that's a concern, simply play the game straight from level 1 as a game about demigods (and simply remind the players to incorporate something about their demigod status in their One Unique Thing.) It handles this conceit remarkably well.

Zweihander is A Grim Historical Dark Ages Emulator

It is! And it's not even really a hidden trait if you read through the GM's advice in the book. Zweihander appears to be built not only to emulate the grim world of Warhammer fantasy (or a suitable clone), but to emulate the dark ages of Europe in it's most inglorious form. Even the core setting appears to be aimed at a sort of "alternate medieval Europe" which is even closer to the mark than the faux Europe of classic Warhammer. Using this as the core while riffing from a couple Medieval manuals and atlases seems almost trivial. How much (or how little) you want to involve supernatural elements is entirely up to your own taste.

That last one feels like a bit of a cheat, so here's a bonus suggestion:

Dungeons & Dragons 5E can do Post-Apocalypse Just Fine

Go read up on the advanced weapon tech options in the DMG, then look at each character class and modify their spell choices to reflect only spells of a psychic or potentially psychic nature. Only allow magic items and options which could reflect future tech interpreted through the superstitious view of primitive distant survivors, and either pick monsters of appropriately mutated nature, or reskin to your heart's desire....it's actually easier than it sounds. Or just play it straight and run a Swords of Shannara style future apocalypse in which magic is the source (or product) of the end times.

Extra Bonus: White Star is Star Wars In All But Name 

It's fairly obvious that White Star will work to serve as a Star Wars RPG emulator in a pinch; I'm considering the possibility of using it for exactly that purpose while I draw on the Star Wars RPGs for source material.

Zweihander: The Grim & Perilous RPG free in PDF right now

Grab it here! The PDF of Zweihander, and enormous Warhammer Fantasy RPG retroclone is free right now until Nov. 1st. Well worth it, trust me....I have it in print and the sucker is giant, and very, very complete. Thanks to Tenkar for spreading the word.

Zweihander RPG - Monstrously Large Tome in the Warhammer Vein

I only recently learned of the Zweihander RPG, from Grim & Perilous Studios, but let me tell ya...this thing's a beast! 2017 is shaping up to be a very interesting year for alternative fantasy RPGs and this one is no exception. At 692 pages this is a monster of a book, but from scanning the PDF it appears to be very complete.

Zweihander appears to be an "inspired" retro RPG based on classic Warhammer Fantasy Role Play (mainly 1st edition and 2nd edition influence it looks like). For those of you unfamiliar with this style of fantasy RPG, it's nestled deep in the grim, gritty and dark domain of a grimy, plague-ridden pseudo-Europe  where life is both cheap and hard.

I've got the PDF but the POD is on the way, after which I'll have proper time to absorb it (let's me catch up on Dungeon Fantasy while waiting). I'm not sure how much longer this promotion is on for, but if you'd like the print edition go support Tenkar's Tavern through this link for a specialoffer on the print copy for only $44.99, which is discounted from $59.99. Also, the PDF is only $13.00 right now.