If The Black Hack (1e or 2e) has escaped your attention and if you are a fan of do-it-yourself tabletop role-playing, then The Black Hack written by David Black (hence the title) is something I highly recommend taking a look at. I am a fan of the World's First Role-Playing Game and a devotee of making any game my own by adding rulings, customization and my own setting materials, and The Black Hack is among my favorite published products.
This slim black booklet has been around long enough to generate a second (larger) edition and as a quick web search will reveal, loads of independent "hacks" that use The Black Hack as their basis while adding more specialized and genre specific materials to create variant games.
The first edition is presented (straight from the creative imagination of David Black, I suppose), as a game that is streamlined, rules lite and a FRP system featuring player facing dice-rolls implicitly in a classic fantasy milieu as players take the role of Warrior, Thief, Cleric or Conjurer exploring and fighting their way through whatever setting the DM comes up with (which may or may not resemble something similar to Middle-earth).
The Black Hack seems to be an introduction to many popular modern concepts such as the "usage dice" chain (at least it's the first time I recall seeing this mechanic used). In The Black Hack (and in some more recent systems) Expendable Resources are rolled for using a usage die rather than being strictly tracked in the inventory. The Resource, such as rations, torches or arrows, is initially assigned a starting usage die which can be any of the popular polyhedrons. As the resource is used the die is rolled. A rolled value of of a 1 or 2 drops the resource to the next lower die in the descending chain, thus a d6 becomes a d4. Once a 1 or 2 is rolled on the smallest die, (d4), the resource is exhausted.
The Black Hack has the player make most of the die rolls in The Black Hack including when the PC is attacking and defending. The DM may roll a die for damage inflicted if the player misses the defense roll for their character. Otherwise, the dice are in the player's control.
As I look about my collection with an eye to making the most of the best games I have available, The Black Hack has come to the top of my list. Mechanically The Black Hack differs significantly from the original little brown books, but when I consider the principles upon which the original game was conceived, The Black Hack seems a very suitable successor to Volume 1, Men & Magic.
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