Slash Hex (Playtest Edition)

Slash Hex is an adventure role-playing game in which players will use their creativity and imaginations to explore a wild and dangerous world, hunting for treasure, defeating monsters, and engaging in other mostly heroic exploits.

This game is heavily inspired by giants that have come before, most notably in name by the /X side of the original B/X books, but also Basic Fantasy, Knave, White Box, and The Black Hack.

While it is inspired by the aforementioned games, Slash Hex has morphed into something that has a footprint of its own, while still remaining largely compatible with classic modules. For further detail about what sets it apart, see the notes below:

This game started out as a collection of house rules I used with my Basic Fantasy campaign, and then it evolved over time into becoming different enough to be considered a game in its own right instead of just "Basic Fantasy with house rules."

The most noticeable things that set it apart from its sibling games are class-based weapon damage and armor class (no restrictions on weapon or armor usable by each class), a flexible but dangerous GLOG-like magic dice system, a broader use of stat modifiers across different areas of the game (to discourage dump stats and help out players who roll low in what would traditionally be known as the "good" stats).

Other differences and inspirations may surface as you dig a bit deeper. Inventory is streamlined into slots similar to Knave, and fairly tight. Any class can wear up to 5 pieces of armor, but it will take up inventory slots. Each class gets a unique bonus attribute whose "supply" is measured with a Black-Hack-inspired usage die. Each class gets to pick a "path" at level 1 to further customize each of the 6 classes into 4 sub-classes (for a total of 24 paths) with a minor ability or mechanical benefit for each to set it apart from other characters of the same class.

The GM is encouraged to interpret all dice rolls in a narrative-advancing way so there are no true misses. Magic items are encouraged to be made as interesting as possible instead of just using +N modifiers.

There are other differences hiding in there, some things I made up myself, some things I (usually obviously) swiped from someone else, like the Overloaded Encounter Die.

Really, this is a "greatest hits" for me of my own personal house rules I use in my home campaign. It is still missing some things like hirelings, domains, etc, but this is the game I prefer to play, polished and presentable for anyone else who may have similar tastes to my own.

This game is "complete and playable" although it does not include information on how to handle hirelings, conduct large-scale battles, build a domain, etc. That may come in a future edition or appendix. For now, the rules are complete enough for low-level play without hirelings, and should be compatible enough with games like Basic Fantasy or Old School Essentials to borrow the hireling rules from one of those.

The game has not been thoroughly play-tested outside of my own group, so feedback is encouraged. Thank you for checking it out!