The Lords of Hack is an association of pen and pencil gamers from the South Central Pennsylvania region of the United States.

Mission Statement

The purpose of The Lords of Hack is to have fun.

General Tennants

No jerks. If you are acting like jerk on game day, don't come. How do you know who is a jerk and who isn't? Those who violate the mission statement are jerks. Everyone should do their best to both have fun and support the fun for all other players. Those not having fun or and/or spoiling fun for others will be asked to leave the campaign.

Communicate! If you have a problem with something, tell somebody. The participants are all adults (even if we don't always act like it in-game). Together we can figure anything out.

GMs and players should always be consistant within the storytelling. We can believe that in the world the sun rises in the west and sets in the east -- but it should always do so. And everything that depends on that fact should reflect this. Don't contradict the consistancies set forth by other GMs in the campaign.

It is only common courtesy to let the GM and hosts know that you are not coming, so they know when to start and what to plan for. As soon as you know you aren't coming, let 'em know right away.

Players are encouraged to add "flavor" wherever they can. A good description of your PC, painting miniatures, a detailed PC background, some in-character fiction, or even helping to flesh out the campaign world are all welcome to all players -- not just GMs.

If you would like to see a story or subplot -- suggest it! GMs don't like doing all the work anyway. Alternately, offer to GM it yourself.

We refrain from discussing real life matters of religion or politics. Just because we don't see eye to eye, it doesn't mean we can't stand shoulder to shoulder.

Be courteous to one another. Help the host prepare before the game and help clean up after. Listen to your host. Ply the host with snacks and gifts if you think it is appropriate. Happy hosts make for a good game.

GM's Guidelines

Anyone can be the GM if they want to.

Less is more. If you can have a multitude of items, choose a few that are really interesting and develop them as much as possible. Favor depth over breadth of content in all things.

Let the players make choices. That's what the game is all about. No railroading. At the very least give the players the illusion of free will. Instead of saying "no", always consider saying "yes, but...".

Try to keep adventure sessions reasonable in scope. Oftentimes even the best games can get too convoluted and out of hand if the GM tries to do too much. Try not to tackle "save the world" plotlines. "Save the nation" or "save the town" is about our speed. When in doubt, make the plot scope simply "save yourselves".

Always try to add "flavor" to the game. Roleplaying away from a game session by email or IM is a legitimate way of getting a subplot out into the open between sessions. Also, it makes a good log entry in itself.

Try to build on previous adventures to create "campaigns" or extended stories made up of several game sessions. This continuity makes for a more immersive experience.

GMs must write a session log after each game they GM. Alternately they may convince someone else at the game session (a player/bystander/pet/etc) to write it for them. Example templates of logs can be forwarded to you at your request. A GM post-mortem and campaign polls are good to in order to gauge the feelings of the players, but are not necessary.

The Lords of Hack have been hacking since 1999. After ten years of gaming we have had a whole lot of fun. As one might imagine there are plenty of in-jokes and anecdotes from a decade of gaming. Here's a list of all of our previous campaigns.

Campaign	System	Began	Ended	Notes
First Campaign	AD&D 2e	July 1999	March 2000
Melvek Wilds	RC D&D	April 2000	July 2000
Northern Marches	D&D 3e	August 2000	March 2002
Vikings	D&D 3e	April 2002	May 2003
Draw Outlaw	d20 Homebrew	June 2003	August 2003
Space Bastards	D20 Homebrew	September 2003	February 2004
Dr. Skull's Conan Cult	D20 Conan	March 2004	November 2004
Traytor’s Raiders	D20 Traveller	December 2004	Janruary 2005	Logs Missing
Six Dales	Homebrew D&D	February 2005	August 2005
Knights of Orion	Savage Worlds	October 2005	July 2006
Uthax	Savage Worlds	August 2006	October 2006
Brown Trousers (Aquilla)	Castles and Crusades	November 2006	Janruary 2008
Fulton Horizons	Savage Worlds	April 2008	June 2008
Irongate	D&D 4e	July 2008	May 2009
Gatavia	Return of the Trolls	June 2009	April 2010
Slipstream	Savage Worlds	April 2010	November 2010
Badlands	AD&D	November 2010	December 2011
Kings of Orion	Savage Worlds	Janruary 2012	Present

The Lords of Hack are legion and honorable. The following is a list of all those who regularly contribute or have once passed through our hallowed ranks in roughly the order in which they joined.

David Nelson

Bob LaForge

Chuck Fleurie

David Hanley

Peter Zollers

Andrew Smith

Mike Miller

Toby Miller

James Gallagher

Marlon Kirton

Jason Leibert

Joe Cress

David Coombs

Chris Crimmins

Kevin Viands