GitHack

Announcing GitHack, the update to StormHack.

GitHack is a setting-agnostic OSR sword-and-sorcery game system. This is the introduction:

This is my OSR game. There are many like it, but this one is mine. It’s a remix of familiar OSR system objects and names from the Worlds Favourite Fantasy Game (such as Ability Scores, monster stat blocks, etc.).

Things that are like a “typical OSR game”:

  • Six ability scores (STR/CON/DEX/INT/WIS/CHA)
  • Ability checks involve roll-under with a d20
  • Saving throws are a kind of ability check
  • Monsters have hit dice, armour class, and damage (typical stat blocks can be used with little or no conversion)

Things which are a bit different compared to a typical OSR game:

  • freeform Backgrounds for the character’s life events
  • characters have “demons” (an actual dark side, supernatural patron, etc.)
  • demons are what provides the character’s magical powers, and grow as those powers are used, corrupting the character in turn
  • There are no levels, and the human side of the character doesn’t gain experience
  • On the other hand, all characters start off with a high level of competence and toughness

This should be the opposite of the “zero to hero” ethos in that the characters start strong and capable of taking risks, and all characters should be playable alongside each other whether they’re powerful sorcerers or the roguish hero who eschews magical aid. But otherwise it should play like any other fantasy RPG.

GitHack is hosted on GitHub.

Even though you can freely collaborate on some indie games the static pdf format isn’t optimal. This is a different approach to make it easier to collaborate by presenting it like a software project. The text is in markdown making it highly portable whilst supporting basic formatting and tables in a human readable way. You can then take the markdown text and convert it with pandoc or view it with your chosen markdown viewer.

Since this is a GitHub project you can clone or fork the repo and submit your own commits for the main branch. You can use Git from the command line and make edits with any text editor, see where your content differs from the main branch, and so on. However there are also graphical tools and plugins available. I recommend atom.io which integrates with GitHub nicely and has a lot of useful packages for writing and rendering markdown, and it’s cross-platform.

Of course, if you just want to read the content, it’s right there on GitHub and you can download it and even read it online. I’m adding chapters continuously. In addition there will be an Extras folder for alternative rules, settings (including StormHack) and more.

Any questions or comments, reach out here or on Twitter (@fictoplasm).

4 thoughts on “GitHack

  1. Nice work Ralph! I really like github even though I don’t use it myself.
    What kind of settings do you yourself envision for these rules (apart from Stormbringer/Corum/etc)?

    • For me, it’s any setting that embraces the idea of magic coming at a cost. It didn’t grow out of Moorcock so much as the Stormbringer system with demons etc. It’s intended to be high adventure, and encourage PCs to take risks. I can imagine running a modern magical game using the system as well.

      But really I’d like to see if someone else has an idea for it, without my own biases

      • “(…) and encourage PCs to take risks.” Interesting as that is something we discuss a lot in my regular gaming group. I’ll try GitHack with them and see where we end up.

        • Just to build on that, the reason they might take more risks is because the game should be a lot more survivable (if I’ve got the design right). I wanted a game where the PCs could be hammered by waves of monsters and still feel they’ve got a chance.

          If you do try it out, let me know how you get on — and tap me up if there’s anything that doesn’t make sense

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