Three things I love: Holmes' Basic D&D. Still my default D&D. Michael Thomas' BLUEHOLME. Keeping the spirit alive. David Black's The Black Hack. Fun to play; fun to hack. So I was plenty intrigued when I heard that Michael Thomas was releasing a Holmesian take on The Black Hack: BLUEHACK. I asked Mr. Thomas a few question about this project: BLUEHOLME and The Black Hack both rely on pared-down rulings-based play, but they are two very different realizations of this philosophy. Why did you want to bring them together? Did they pair naturally? Michael Thomas: I thought of BLUEHACK™ almost immediately upon seeing TBH during the Kickstarter. Holmes created an immensely pared-down version of OD&D and Greyhawk when he wrote the first Basic rulebook. There have been other d20 minimalist systems, but TBH was—in my opinion—the closest to perfect. What rule-mechanics did you feel were important to bring into th...
joel priddy has a blog about role playing games