Eldritch Hack
by Dan Masters
Dungeon University Press, 2022
Available in pdf from https://www.drivethrurpg.com/
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Eldritch Hack a 46-page pdf (not available in print), of which 18 pages is the "Eldritch Hack" portion, while the remainder is the adventure "Cloque House". The rules are an homage to Call of Cthulhu. It is not without its issues, but is a really neat way of simplifying the Cthulhu setting to a very small amount of rules.
The pdf starts with a quick introduction, which specifically mentions that this game hearkens back to Cthuluesque horror, and is meant to avoid Indiana Jones or Aliens -style horror.
At page 5, we get the rules of the game - roll 1d20 and pray to Nyrlathotep for a high number. Natural 20s are really good and natural 1s are really bad. The Keeper, errr Game Master will decide on a target number for the d20 roll. The rules are basically any version of WOTC Fantasy Gaming from 2000 through now. They are nothing spectacular but they are uber simple, which is exactly what I want in a game.
While I'm thinking about it, let me bring out an "ugly" in this game - the background color. I recognize that Mr. Masters was going for the crumbly, yellowed old manuscript look but the color he chose is way too dark. It does not make the text unreadable but if he toned it down a few shades, it would be much better, in my opinion.
Character creation comes next and here things get pretty wonky. Skill, Lore, Sanity, and Hit Points are all perfectly reasonable for the game. I agree completely with Mr. Master's choices here. How they are generated is just really odd, however. While reading this page, I opened a Word doc and made notes on how I would do character creation if I ever run a game of Eldritch Hack. The rules want a player to roll three 6-siders and take the best ("assign the highest") one for Skill, Roll two 6-siders and take the best ("discard the lowest") for Sanity, and finally to roll 6d6, divide by two, and then round up, if necessary to get Hit Points. Lore starts at 0. Sanity gets a +3 bonus, ending up with a 4-9 range.
Now, I know for a fact that Mr. Masters has said specifically in some of his YouTube videos that he won't ever go back to playing D&D with percentage thief skills, and here he is complicating something that should be super simple. I am not mathematically equipped to determine what the best result of three 6-siders would be but wouldn't it be easier to just say Skill starts at 3, or something? What I put down on my notes would be to allow the player to roll dice for all abilities, and then pick where they go, so one die each for Skill and Sanity, one die for Lore (as a bonus die, you will see), and three for HP, giving six dice. The player will then drop one die and assign 0 to Lore, and then pick any three dice for HP, with one die each assigned to Skill and Sanity, which gets the +3 bonus. Or, for a more D&D style, start all characters with a Skill of 1 and Sanity of 9.
Money isn't a thing in Eldritch Hack, which makes sense since all characters are expected to be middling to wealthy bookworms. I would have to beat my players over the head with this. Some of them have the primary goal of gaining wealth in every game of any genre in which we play!
Each character gets an occupation, which is what the Skill score is used for - a doctor adds it to doctory things like healing, diagnosing, etc., while an archaeologist adds it to deciphering dead languages, using brushes and pick-hammers, etc. Characters can pick a couple of non-occupation electives in which they are skilled. The author dials back on the "No Indiana Jones, daggummit!" (Ya, not a real quote) here, by specifically mentioning an archaeologist could pick "expert with a bullwhip" as an elective in which he excels.
The Skill ability score as a catch-all for everything occupation-related is a really great idea. Gone are horrible lists of skills like rope use, fire starting, straw drinking, teeter-totter, and the rest of that ridiculousness. If it is something that makes sense for your occupation (or electives) to have as a skill, you add your Skill ability to your d20 test.
The next page is a list of names, broken down into names for men, women, and last names. Useful I do believe.
The GMs section comes next, beginning with a list of weapons. I have what I believe to be a legitimate gripe in the weapons list. The author has a weapon called a "Baretta" and it does d6 damage. He also has a semi-automatic pistol that does d8 damage. Now, I'm a gun guy. I was the kid in the early 80s with a fully-automatic MAC10, laying waste to bushes on our property. I am not the world's greatest authority on firearms but I don't recall every reading about a "baretta". I assume what the author means is a Beretta. The question then must be, why specify Beretta and not lump it in with pistol? If the author wanted a smaller, concealable pistol, he might have broken semi-automatic pistols into two categories, "standard" and "light", or pistol < .32 and pistol > .380. Something like that. I thought perhaps that "baretta" was 1930s slang for a derringer, but with an ammo capacity of 7 rounds.... I just don't know. He also mentions specifically that Tommy guns are not included because stuffy old professors won't use them, which is perfectly fine, but what if said professor runs into a mob hit and the torpedo is shooting AT the professor. It would be nice for the GM to have something to go by. Personally, for those ne'er-do-well bootleggers, a Tommy gun would be d8 damage (.45 cal), 5 shots per round (consecutive -2 to hit, as in the rules), with an ammo capacity of either 20 or 50.
Combat is super simple and I love it. Roll a d20, try to to beat a TN 10. If the character is a private dick or a copper, he can add his Skill to the roll. Natural 20 is double damage and natural 1 is knife dropped, gun jams, etc. A minor critique is that in the included scenario, this Armor Class equivalent is DR (I assume Defense Rating, but it is never actually spelled out) but in the included bestiary, it is abbreviated TN. I would prefer to have the abbreviations consistent.
Combat can be deadly. At 0 hp, characters are unconscious, and below 0, they either die immediately (50% chance, or die in d6 rounds, 50% chance). Healing is the typical 1 HP per day, which was standard when D&D was good. Were I to run Eldritch Hack, I would probably have all characters die if below 0 HP if I have a large number of players or die in d6 rounds if I have only a few players.
Since this is a Cthulhuesque game, Sanity tests are obviously needed. Mr. Masters avoids the annoyingly specific list of mental degeneracies from Call of Cthulhu (or AD&D 1e, or Palladium, etc.) Basically, the player does a standard d20 vs. TN roll, with a +1 bonus if he is still mostly sane. If he fails, the Sanity score drops. When it hits 0, the character is insane, either temporarily or permanently, each 50% chance. Recovering Sanity requires a doctor or a sanitarium.
After an adventure or game session (GMs choice), players can attempt to increase an ability score.
There is a list of forbidden manuscripts and a couple of paragraphs on magic and spells. Characters must roll Lore vs. TN 15 to cast a spell. Obviously, they must have access to a spell.
The next few pages are instructions on creating scenarios, along with a sample. There are also rules here for searching for clues.
Next we have a few pages of critters, with the aforementioned TN for armor class.
A color character sheet and a B&W character sheet follow. Both are serviceable. The rules portion of the pdf ends with rules recaps.
I won't go into too much detail about the adventure, other than a brief synopses. The adventure is good. It hearkens back to some of the old Call of Cthulhu adventures that came in compilation books - short and to the point. I find no fault with this.
"Some old geezer dies. Y'all characters are nieces and nephews who might inherit some of that sweet, sweet cash, provided you survive the night in the house. Each of you is some sort of backstabbing deviant. Y'all arrive at the house. What do you do?" I won't say more so as to not give the plot and secrets away. I know I have seen a Rifftrax riff on a movie with this same story but I don't remember the name of it.
The adventure has some nice maps of the mansion and a list of each room and what's noticeable about it. A list of characters and NPCs follows, with one page per dirtbag PC. As I mentioned previously, the armor class in the module is labeled DR. I would love to have two sets of maps, the first being for the players with room labeled, and the second being for the GM with the secret doors and whatnot labeled.
I must mention the art. The Cloque House adventure is really well-illustrated. Jason McDonald is the artist and he really comes into his own with people. The biplanes, lungfish, and ants were all serviceable, but his drawings of people are downright disturbing. He uses this liney, veiny, wormy style of (I assume) computer brush strokes. I know as little about art as I know about math, so I'm sure there is a style for his technique. The characters are very creepy. The picture of William Cloque-Overton, Sr. reminds me of a painting in a Scooby Doo mansion, but actually scary. Is Scary Scooby Doo an art style? According to the bio, Mr. McDonald lives in NYC, so he may not actually be human, anyway...
⇒ GRIT: ★★★★☆ The rules would work, as is, I believe. I would love to play in a game of Eldritch Hack. Heck, I'd love to run a game of it! In addition to my notes I made at character creation, I also typed up some other notes for making his system more generic, so other genres could be emulated. This is the style of rules that I love for pickup or convention games. With some fleshing out, reconciling abbreviations, and two pages of "life in the 1930s" or something, this would easily be 5 stars.
⇒ VIGOR: ★★☆☆☆ The game either needs to slow down on advancement, or add in an optional way to improve characters. As is, characters could potentially be maxed out in a few months of regular play. As stated in GRIT, there needs to be some amount of setting information and perhaps more genre immersion information. I know that it is a short pdf but the author can drop off the combat target and the color character sheet and fit in some good setting information without upping the page count. If you use these rules to run Masks of Nyarlathotep, you are golden, but if you use just them to create your own campaign, I think that the GM will find them limiting.
⇒ GRACE: ★★★★☆ The pdf looks functional. I mentioned before the background is too dark. Even so, it does not limit readability, which is good. The white on blue in the Designing Scenarios chapter is more difficult to read. From watching some of the author's videos on YouTube, I know that he and I are about the same age, so I'm surprised he doesn't find this part of the book difficult to read - that being said, it is certainly readable. Again, I just would prefer a lighter color background. The layout is clear, the text is readable, the section headings are nice and large and easy to find, AND the art, especially pictures of living (or undead...) things, is top notch.
