HackMystara: The Gawds Must Be Crazy
Old school gaming using the most comprehensive rules ever crafted in the classic land of adventure, Mystara. Not for the wuss of heart.
TYPE
SYSTEM
LANGUAGE
EXPERIENCE
AGE
$25.00
/ Session
Details
3 players following this game
Bi-weekly / Friday - 2:00 AM UTC
Oct 30 / Session 21
Session Duration / 2–4 hours
4 / 6 Seats Filled
Top Game Master
One of StartPlaying's top-rated GMs, a player favorite and highly recommended.
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Schedule
Meet your party members
4/6
About the adventure
Travel the lands of Mystara, from the legendary Gazetteer series, in sandbox-style old school play! Start as a 0-level nobody and work your way up to the dizzying heights of 1st level with the extensive (and potentially lethal) character creation system, which will necessitate full-length private sessions before play. Explore such options as gnome titans, masters of the groin stomp, or play as a forbidden blood mage! Adventure as a pixie fairy, but try not to be eaten by grunge elves! Track Honor to make sure the Gawds don't punish you for getting too arrogant for your station! Look for loopholes in the lengthy and arcane rules, and abuse them to conquer the world! Attend the College of Magic in Glantri City! Fight pirates alongside Thyatian forces! Track down that Gargantua guy and figure out what he's all about! The Known World circa 1000 AC is your oyster. This is fantasy gaming as it's supposed to be done. Runes of Imploding Eyeballs and Sidewinder Fireballs are just the beginning. If you've never played Hackmaster before, don't worry about it, you'll pick it up as you go... or forget all that and let me do the math. Not recommended for the wuss of heart.
Game style
Roleplay Heavy
Sandbox / Open World
Theater of the Mind
Rules as Written (RaW)
Game themes
Meet the Game Master
4.9
(26)
3 years on StartPlaying
233 games hosted
Highly rated for: Storytelling, Creativity, World Builder
About me
Howdy! My games tend towards the sandbox, do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law and all that. I'm a big believer in the power of narrative. The best stories are always about ideas more than plots. That's not to say that it's all arthouse allegory, but the plot should be about more than a list of bad guys to thwart and loot to steal. (Except, of course, when that's the story being told. Context is king.) If you show up for my games expect a certain amount of history, satire, and the odd pop culture reference in the mix. I tend towards horror and comedy, as I find they complement each other well, but again, depends on the game. I also offer personalized one-shots for players that miss a game- you aren't on auto-follow, you're off doing things. Need to miss a game? Don't worry, I got you. (DISCLAIMER: In D&D based games, this may involve trips to Ravenloft, play at your own risk. Scheduling difficulties may interfere with this offer, but my schedule is pretty flexible.) Bigtime into Butlerian theology- "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind." No AI-generated anything 'round these parts. Years of Blood Bowl have turned me against elfs. Play at your own risk. You can call me "Jeremy" if you really need to.
View Profile →Character creation
Creating your character
Character creation will be handled during session 0, or during a half-price individual paid session, as characters may die during the process. If you've never made a HackMaster 4e character, it's an absolute blast and well worth an individual session.
What to expect
Preparing for the session
Get some dice, I don't like random number generators and will not be setting one up. Other than that, whatever you need to fire up your imagination! There will be minimal use of Foundry for managing calendars and the like, but not battlemaps. Most of the action will happen on Discord.
What Diamond J brings to the table
I bring the rules. You bring dice. Character sheets on your end are optional, I'll have them recorded with my notes.
Homebrew rules
It's Hackmaster 4e, I do not need any homebrew rules as everything is already covered. The Wilderness Survival Guide from AD&D 1e might make an appearance, I suppose. Oh, and if anyone wants to play a lupin or shadow elf, those might get a little homebrew-y, but I'm going to be playing it pretty conservative and hewing to published rules as much as possible. Same thing if you want to play the weird classic Mystara stuff, like sphinxes and the like, I got you covered. And psionics are kind of all over the place, there'll be some adjudication there as well. Plus my rulings for what's going on with Immortals vs. Gawds, that's going to be some homebrew. Does using mechanics from the odd OSR book like the Sandbox Generator count? I mean, there are rules in there, but they're all back-end stuff for me. How about characters from things like Gig Economy? OH, WAIT, the Creature Catalog, a lot of that is classic Mystara stuff, I'm going to have to update the Hacklopedia of Beasts to accomodate... as well as tweaking the Mystara lore to accomodate all of that stuff, that's some private work I'm going to have to do there. Crap, this is getting lengthy, that's a lot... Uhhh... tl;dr Not really.
Equipment needed to play
Microphone
Platforms used
Safety
How Diamond J creates a safe table
The goal is never to make any players uncomfortable; as such, I highly encourage folks to bring any issues they have with the game to my attention in whatever way they feel most comfortable.
Content warnings
Safety tools used