I want to run Luka Rejec’s Ultraviolent Grasslands setting, but I thought it would be a laugh to try The Black Hack, as I also wanted to try that engine. I don’t really have a good reason1, beyond having bought both. And liking both!
I’m a sucker for a pointcrawl that one can wander around, ever since Elite. You had a little ship, a map, and off you go to make some money. Luka’s setting is on the ground, and more sciencefantasy, to borrow Troika!’s term. But it’s scratching that itch.
The Black Hack is me experimenting with a game engine that is simpler than 5e, and more complex than Into The Odd or Stay Frosty. It’s also another beautiful book. The engine removes stat bonuses in favour of having players roll under their base stats. Enemy attacks are also rolled by players, as defensive rolls, rather than the GM doing it. The GM still chooses the actions of the enemy combatants, though.
This is the result of playing for a couple of months by December 2022. It still might change further.
Black Hack terms are in Bold Italics.
Characters
Stats are rolled as normal for Black Hack.
Backgrounds used as UVG skills - gain advantage if it’s relevant. I’m using tests pretty sparingly, only if there’s a risk on failure (e.g. combat). I’m not using the “disadvantage on skill check if you don’t have something relevant” as I don’t want to dissuade trying things.
Stat penalties
Misfortune tables cause stat penalties. These will take effect until the end of the next Scene. For instance, until next week’s journey, or until the end of the next combat.
Advancement
The Black Hack rules are that a character gains Experience by Doing A Thing, such as:
- Killing a Named enemy
- Failing spectacularly
- Seeing a new site
The character then recounts this at the campfire, and goes carousing and spends a lot of money.
Both of these are pretty much in keeping with UVG. Actually levelling up in Black Hack involves performing Attribute Tests for all attributes and incrementing them on failures, which is a nice geometric progression. Wizards and Clerics need to go find new spells, before they can learn them.
I’m basically going to do milestone progression (“OK it’s been long enough, you can level up”), particularly at first. I also skipped the carousing requirement for the first level. If we have a number of magic users, questing off all the time for spells might drag a bit. Maybe a Magic Library will do? :thinking_face:
Equipment
This part gets a bit messy.
Use UVG descriptions for everything, but use Black Hack rules, so all Common weapons have the same damage, set by character class. Rare or Exotic will have bonuses, side effects, etc. Two-handed weapons aren’t Slow or anything.
Ammunition and Food will have Usage Dice. Trade goods are tracked as sacks, as they don’t get consumed.
Currently on paper a Ud6 should last about 5 tests - in game they’ve lasted 3 rolls at most 😖
For costs, Coins :right_arrow: UVG €
Encumbrance
I don’t have a plan for this right now, so I’m just going for “and you’re carrying all that are you?”.
The caravan gets a bit more vague - how much weight is a Usage Die? Is 2 d4s of different trade goods more or less heavy than a d8? The latter should have many more successful rolls!
Currently saying a two-horse wagon can pull d8 supplies, which is about twice as much as the original rules. But I’m also specifically running a game where we agreed in our Session Zero to go light on the starvation and food management.
Armour
Keeping this as-is.
However it is that it works.
Exploring wilderness
Every week the caravan is away from a settlement:
- Describe the weather over the week
- Describe the scenery and the journey
- Select a party member at random2 to perform a Charisma Test. Pick from the Misfortune table for that location based on the pass/fail.
- Ask for a memory from each character of something that’s happened that week.
- Roll the Usage Die on the food stuff for each member of the party (that doesn’t forage!)
- Have an encounter (roll, or don’t)
- Set the new position of the caravan, and the new date by the standard rules
- Don’t forget to ask Wizards/Clerics which spells they’ve prepared (1 per level)
Fortune & Misfortune
UVG provides misfortune tables, designed for a d20+mod roll, although not evenly ordered from “worst” to “best”.
I was originally planning to use these with a “work out your stat modifier like OSE or something”, but it felt too complicated for either system.
I’m currently trying the following:
- Randomly select a character
- Character performs a Charisma Test
- For success roll on the Fortune table, for failure, roll on the Misfortune table
| Roll | Misfortune |
|---|---|
| 1 | Slept wrong, neck/joint frozen, every movement hurts, sudden ones require a Strength Test |
| 2 | Fell off the damn wagon, take damage |
| 3 | The only campsite has some paranoid folks who won’t let you come near. Constitution Test to not suffer the extra long day. |
| 4 | Trip on invisible shard of stuckforce, take damage |
| 5 | Trodden on by a mount, take damage |
| 6 | Floods wash away the road |
Undecided on how damage should scale. Mind you, fortune doesn’t scale, the party gets luckier as they’re increasingly favoured by the gods.
| Roll | Fortune 🍀 |
|---|---|
| 1 | Beautiful sunrise |
| 2 | Samovar is just right, coffee tastes that bit better |
| 3 | Is that €1 on the ground? |
| 4 | There’s already people camped up ahead, and the party is welcome to join |
| 5 | Tasty unaware animals frolic nearby |
| 6 | A flash of reflected light? That’s an ambush up ahead, but not any more! |
Weather
I ended thinking far too much about this, and wrote my own tables. I’m rolling twice a week on it.
Discoveries
In settlements where you rest you can hear about Discoveries. I hand out the ones I’m interested in the party going to, if they nose around for them.
Combat
Use The Black Hack bestiary, and reskin. It has rules for generating monsters, use 1HD per Level.
Instead of the rules about rolling 13s, roll the Usage Die for ammunition if used in an encounter.