If you’re a part of the Old-School Role-Playing (OSR) community, then you’ve probably heard of Whitehack! I recently decided to buy the third edition of this popular game, and I was happy I did.

One of the first things I noticed was how user-friendly the PDF was. It had page numbers on the bottom of every page which were linked to the table of content and the index, making navigation so much faster. It's a surpising quality-of-life improvement.

The gameplay was really well explained. Each class has its own unique set of game mechanics, and the approach to spell-casting was like a mix of FATE and the OSR style. It really felt like the game was pushing the boundaries of the OSR style in a good way!

What really excites me are the games system it calls 'Bases'. 'Bases' are ways for a party to have a shared asset: like a mentor, a vehicle (ship, car, etc.), or a magical pet. Using a Base is an incredibly flexible way to add so much to the game. It makes me excited at the many possibilites of interesting game scenarios this opens up.

Plus, Whitehack is incredibly easy to convert content from other OSR systems. All you need to do is use the hit dice written in the other system and calculate a few numbers and you’re essentially done. It makes it so easy to play a huge range of content.

I can’t recommend Whitehack enough. It’s a deep and creative game that has been around for a long time, yet somehow still feels fresh and innovative compared to many games popular today. If you haven’t tried it yet, you’re missing out.

This is the only OSR system you'll ever need. Really.

I've been a huge fan of Whitehack for several years now and have been incessantly begging for an official PDF. I am so genuinely happy that this wonderful game can now become a part of gaming libraries around the world!

There are other reviews that explain the nature of Whitehack better than I could and probably aren't as biased. That said, I'll briefly try to explain why I'm so passionate about this game.

• Mixing old school games with collaborative elements is hard to pull off. Whitehack does it beautifully.
• Universal mechanics can often feel stale if executed poorly. Again, Whitehack triumphs.
• So many old school games have the same pastiche fantasy tropes baked into the character options. Whitehack breaks this norm in a smart way.

It's amazing to me that Whitehack achieves all of the above while also innovating other brilliant mechanics like its Auction system (which helps simplify macro-level scenes like chases, large scale battles, etc). And it does all of this in so few pages.

The only feature that might turn some players off is that Whitehack doesn't have much in the way of art. I actually appreciate this design choice though because it furthers the notion that the fantasy world is for you and your players to build together.

Whitehack 3rd Edition is well worth your money. It's my go-to system of choice, and even if your goal is to make your own OSR hack, you will almost assuredly be inspired by the mechanics Whitehack has to offer.

Also, if you find yourself loving this game, I strongly encourage you to check out the desginer's other work; I recently purchased his fascinating sci-fi game called Suldokar's Wake and it's dense in the best of ways.

(Note that I've posted a more detailed version of this review on my blog.)

As someone who desperately wants to play old OSR modules and campaigns but doesn't really want to go quite all the way back to pure (or even slightly greased-up) old-school mechanics, this is an excellent, more modern feeling system. No judgement on the term modern, btw, I like a lot of old stuff. For me, the biggest issue is that it's very hard to sell my more FATE-Accelerated crew on the old stuff, but this game gives such an intriguing take on it that I think I will be able to.

I haven't played it much other than running a few little combats and encounters, but it really seems like fun, especially the bidding system for challenges and chases. I'm almost certainly going to steal that for other games I'm planning to run, regardless of system. My only concern is how well this system would scale to really high -level adventures. Not saying that it wouldn't, but that that would be my concern with running it long-term or with using it to run existing high level modules.

Very nice, very tight and clear writing. About the only things I noticed were the odd wrong words/spelling errors, such as quite for quiet a couple times and one spot where I think the author meant to say "circumscribed" but instead wrote "circumcised!"

Overall this is a really nice book, and one that made me think: I want to try this RIGHT NOW, which is my mark for a 5 star game. Definitely worth the purchase. I also ordered the POD from the author's site (via Lulu).

Will report back when I've had a chance to play it, but for now it's a 5-star based on my read and experiments.

For years now I've been digging through the osr picking up some great games and playing them, but this game hit me different. Recently if found I wanted to play an old setting but hacking new races and rules into my game seemed like too much work so I went looking and found whitehack.

This game can play just about any fantasy game idea you have and play it well. The characters feel refreshingly open allowing for a wide range of concept and the free form magic makes spell casting feel unpredictable but extremely useful. And the rules are a life saver for gm's with not much time to prep with small monster stat blocks and loose limits.

I think that if you are interested in a lighter yet deeper fantasy system to play your ideal game you couldn't do much better than whitehack.

Je redécouvre WhiteHack avec cette version 3 alors que la V2 m'avait laissé une trés bonne lecture et impression. La V3 est tout simplement excellente. Trés freeform mais tellement élégant et subtil. Il repasse devant Macchiato Monsters.

This was the OSR ruleset that clicked for me, and will facilitate my table's conversion from D&D 5E to running things more OSR style. As a DM I can now easily port almost anything and any adventure/module into my setting with minimal fiddling and the emergent character creation rewards creativity in a way I haven't seen before. Combat is fast while remaining tactical and as a GM/referree, I'm more empowered to say YES to player character concepts rather than steering them towards a concept that's more viable. I look foward to seeing what my table does with their new freedom.

This is a great ruleset : rules-light yet peppered with some simple modifiers and special rules, free-form yet not boundless. It is traditionalist and not storygamey in the sense that players are playing their character without having directorial or GM-like authority. This 3rd edition is very well laid-out, the PDF is full of cross-reference, which is a boon (if a rule is referenced in the text, a hyperlink will lead you to the referenced page), and the random tables and other examples really help to understand how to use the ruleset and what this is all about.