Since I'm working on the historical hack for the game I took a really deep look at your firearms rules. They're great, I just had some questions for clarification:

1. What are some examples of how you would you classify Light, Heavy, Very Heavy? Pistols, high-caliber rifles, bazookas?
2. For damage - most characters with 5 or so HP would be torn to shreds by two Heavy weapon blasts (and could survive being shot twice or so by a Light weapon.) That seems about right, with most characters taken out by a direct Very Heavy blast unless they're armored or something. Was that basically your thought process?
3. Not a question but a note, I really like the DC stat you added and changing the armor rules to work more like shields. Makes good sense.
4. Also not really a question: Range: I was going to add range elements to each weapon by arena, but I like your table better. I would probably expand it to measure range by arena though: +1DC for 2 arenas away, then another +1DC for each additional arena. What do you think?

Great work all around!

I also changed "face" die to "critical" die so you can gack people somewhere besides the face as appropriate. A little less awesome, perhaps, but more flexible.

Very helpful, thanks. And after thinking about it I agree that user perception is a good basis for range; a crack shot could hit a target at a pretty high range even with a reasonably inaccurate pistol (at least in the awesome cinematic world of OSH).

I'll have some time this weekend to work on my Wild West hack, and I'll probably use a liberal amount of what you've developed (and definitely give you credit - thanks again for your hard work!) I think the main changes when you do a new setting apart from the few mechanical ones we've talked about here are just re-imagining the classes; I like having modifiers to play with for abilities, and there's enough here to do a bit of that plus some more narrative abilities as well.

Thanks for replying as well! Keep up the great work!

I have not forgotten my modern Old School Hack game. I would like your feedback on my most recent draft.

The name is now "People vs. Creatures" and I've got a draft of the player's guide online. It is on this page: http://fictivefantasies.wordpress.com/old-school-hack-modern-slash/

So, this is posted in plenty of time for you all out there to get a zombie-based game going on for Halloween. I would like you to let me know how it goes, if you care to try it out based on my materials. I even updated the zombie page to match the player's guide.

Some of this is very drafty. Other parts are coming together nicely. I think it's playable by Old School Hack standards, loaded with handwavium and awesome.

I have lots of randomizing material. Age, weight, height, relationship at start of the game, physical traits, talents for occupations and hobbies (replacing inherent abilities in this version), and more.

And there is new stuff too. Rules for learning languages and musical instruments, for having belief systems and codes of honor, for having backgrounds affecting your advantages in the game world.

We have rules for sanity (you can be unhinged by what you experience!), a plot-based progression system, 70 open talents, a crisped-up combat system that includes a new way of doing AC and updates weapon lists to include chainsaws(!), guns and ammo, lots of explosives...

We've got ways to handle packs of minions and swarms of critters to speed things up. There's a "how to" section with guidance on breaking barriers, climbing and falling and swimming and inspiring and investigating and piloting and lock-picking...

A standard difficulty chart helps new DMs decide how tough something should be. There is even a rudimentary beginning of a rule set on vehicles and chases--if nothing else, you can use the guidance for setting damage taken in a car crash.

And, to make sure that you have something monster-related to do with all this, I updated the zombie one-page resource.

The next step (along with refining these offerings) is to start kicking out some monsters to prey on our poor unfortunate characters.

Please? Please look at it and give me a sense of a review, and if possible, play reports. I'd appreciate it.

A couple weeks ago, a friend of mine suggested the OSH crowd would not be interested in the work I'm doing, because they want to play generic gonzo fantasy, not modern or science fiction. I really hope she's wrong.

Anyway, I had a free afternoon today, and I was inspired, so I have the first draft of a science fiction setting where you can battle pirates, critters from Pitch Black, Predators, and shoggoth (with more monsters on the way.) The basics for playing the equivalent of Colonial Space Marines are there, too. It is coming together, and I have a neat name for it:

"Death Shines on Fornia Moon."

If you look at it, I'd be interested to know what you think.

Thanks, I'm glad it's helpful.