Whitehack came out in 2013 as a complete tool set to run Dungeons and Dragons 1e and 2e content (including any content related to those systems) in only 64 pages. It gathered a solid following which spurred the development of a second edition. Now this third edition, as described on the Whitehack site, is the result of additions, comments, and feedback from the community in the intervening eight years.
Out of the box, Whitehack comfortably accommodates classic modules with little need for houseruling and adaptation, which means you can focus more on adding features than trying to stabilize your quality of life. It is a solid platform that is easy to customize, but I think lots of gamers will be quite satisfied with it as is. However, in my appraisal, the design and organization of Whitehack 3e throws up barriers and it is torn between trying to give new players a vast array of tools while streamlining things for veterans.
In my mind Whiteback most closely resembles Into the Odd because of a shared spirit of simplicity of design and aloofness of implied setting, though Whitehack is undoubtedly the more crunchy offering and occupies its own niche. Think of them like two sides of the same coin: Into the Odd faces forward toward a new OSR audience, while Whitehack faces back to echo its forebears.
What is it?
Relatively flexible ruleset designed to be used with D&D 1e, 2e, and similar adventures and modules.
Why play it?
Easily run 1e and 2e modules. Solid rules built to be easy to add to or hack away to suit your tastes. Referee and players have roughly equal influence on narrative. Adapts easily to sci-fi or other genres/settings.
Novel features
Flexible magic system, AC as a lower threshold, Auction feature, play as a ghost, narrative shapes mechanics
Resolution mechanic
D20 roll-under. Players only ever need 2d20s and 3d6, that’s it.
Rules crunch
Very light / Light / Mid / Crunchy (480 pages)
Ease of learning rules
Easy / Okay / Difficult
Deadly?
Safe / Dangerous / Deadly
Character classes?
Yes. Three flexible classes can be adapted to any type of character. Players may choose between two special classes after their character dies.
Adventure included?
No, but there’s a DIY adventure implied in the Referee section
Setting agnostic?
Yes
System compatibility?
Modules for 1e and 2e D&D work easily, and by extension nearly any OSR content.
Overview
Whitehack 3e provides both a solid set of tools for adapting old modules for streamlined, more-modern play, as well as tools for the Referee to generate campaigns and adventures. The core system is relatively familiar and the humble presentation of the rulebook is intended to foreground the features of the system: namely its flexibility and the way the mechanics interact with the narrative and the players.
Narrative Shapes Mechanics
Player characters have a class (Deft, Strong, Wise) which describe their base mechanical abilities, such as their attack value (AV) and special moves. They also have Groups which are elements of their background (vocation, species, affiliation) which inform ordinary ability checks (here called task rolls): an alchemist has no penalty to a “trained” roll to make a magic potions, while a Jedardus Librarian wouldn’t need to make a roll to get a rare book from their library. Characters gain new groups as their adventure unfolds, and groups are used to flesh out the setting. If the Judge rules that dwarves have extra thick skin so you have a +2 to your Con check to resist cold, that becomes a fact about dwarves.
Making Miracles
Using Groups to flesh out facts about the setting is part of the larger whole. Whitehack’s miracles, the game’s magic system, relies on a completely open-ended “wording,” which is a phrase or term that describes a spell. The HP cost to create an effect varies based on character vocation and magnitude, like 1 HP for effects that could be achieved without magic, or D6 to animate the dead or teleport. There’s an elegance involved: a miracle could be specific (like “Great Samarra Stonecrusher”) which would be cheap to cast, or more vague (“Deluge”) which makes for a miracle that’s more versatile.
The table agrees upon what’s fair and reasonable for these miracles and groups and how they impact the narrative, and vice-versa. In this way, the game is built to “stretch” and suit what the table expects and wants.
Smacking Monsters
Whitehack uses an ascending AC system that tops out at 10, so naturally a conversion chart is supplied to work with older content. Characters have an Attack Value (AV) based on their class, which can change based on the weapon they’re using (e.g. the Wise class has a -2 AV penalty to use two-handed weapons) or tactics in combat (the Referee may give an attack +2 AV for having the high ground). With their d20 roll, the attacker needs to roll below their AV but higher than the target’s AC in order to land a hit. In this way, AC raises the lower limit for an attack to hit, and the character skill raises the upper limit, creating a "window" where attacks hit--it's sort of like THAC0 but much easier to understand.
After a successful attack, the attacker rolls weapon damage, which is roughly 1d6. Since every character has a d6 hit die, they tend to be very fragile. Enemies are pulled directly from the Monster Manuals of old to aid conversion of old content. Special abilities are just a phrase (fire breath, turns invisible) without mechanics behind it, but having the Referee make rulings contributes to the generation of what’s “fair and reasonable” and the game expects you to sort that out.
Auctions
At the Referee's discretion chases and extended contests can be resolved with an auction. All participants roll 1d6 and hide the result. This result is added to the attribute they’ll use to make the task check, which makes the roll easier; if you have Dex 13 and get a 2 on the d6, your chances of success are greater now because you only need to roll less than 15. In turns, or in a chaotic free-for-all, players make bids of 1 or higher. This bid is the lowest they can roll--if they bid 2 and attempt that Dex task, they’re promising they will roll less than 15 but higher than 2. The player with the highest bid wins the auction and rolls first. If they fail, the next highest bid rolls, and so on. Whoever succeeds and rolls above their bid first wins the auction, meaning all the others lose and suffer the failure state, which could be falling behind in a race, losing hitpoints as they fight through a mob to grab treasure, or losing pieces in a chess match.
The end result is a very quick resolution that breaks up the monotony of a typical initiative system and incorporates strategy and bluffing into the equation.
Ghostin' It Up
Characters that are killed (hit 0 HP and bleed out after d6 rounds, or reduced to -10 HP) can continue to follow the party as a ghost. They get their full HP back and retain their abilities, but must pay a permanent HP cost each time they wish to affect the real world. Stronger characters with more HP can do more while in ghost form before dissolving away. This gives the dead player something to do before the end of a session, while they wait for their character to be resurrected, or as an alternative to rolling a new character right away.
Structuring For Two Kinds of Gamers
In its presentation, Whitehack 3e is trying to be two different things. The system is newbie friendly while appealing to experienced TTRPG players, but those groups read books differently. I think Whitehack succeeds in supporting both audiences in some respects but falls down in others.
The book starts with a “quick rundown” for these experienced players coming from other games more likely to skim or skip around. Several examples of play are provided before any rules, which is a cool way to get veterans and newbies alike to grasp the vibe and timbre of the system. The examples are quite casual and propose a scenario where the Referee is on equal footing to the players, which makes sense: this is supposed to be a shared conversation about action, with dice used only in cases of uncertainty.
After chapters on creating characters and core rules, a toolkit for adapting content is included with all the expected rules for retainers, an AC conversion table, as well as the welcome inclusion of rules for modern or sci-fi firearms. There's even a corruption system that I would guess is influenced by Swedish classic Mutant. There's plenty here to take or leave as your table wants, much of it encompassing the standard fare that whets the appetites of OSR gamers.
The “How to Run the Game” section includes expected information on running TTRPGs. Particularly novel is a section that directly addresses gripes like “magick is too open-ended” and “characters seem too weak.” The information provided is generally useful, though it goes into much greater depth than I’ve ever seen in an OSR core book, going as far as to provide a framework of an adventure with a dungeon map. What’s more, it provides guidance for creating settings, running campaigns, and there’s even a “story phases” system to help the Referee track the adventure.
Auctions
At the Referee's discretion chases and extended contests can be resolved with an auction. All participants roll 1d6 and hide the result. This result is added to the attribute they’ll use to make the task check, which makes the roll easier; if you have Dex 13 and get a 2 on the d6, your chances of success are greater now because you only need to roll less than 15. In turns, or in a chaotic free-for-all, players make bids of 1 or higher. This bid is the lowest they can roll--if they bid 2 and attempt that Dex task, they’re promising they will roll less than 15 but higher than 2. The player with the highest bid wins the auction and rolls first. If they fail, the next highest bid rolls, and so on. Whoever succeeds and rolls above their bid first wins the auction, meaning all the others lose and suffer the failure state, which could be falling behind in a race, losing hitpoints as they fight through a mob to grab treasure, or losing pieces in a chess match.
The end result is a very quick resolution that breaks up the monotony of a typical initiative system and incorporates strategy and bluffing into the equation.
Ghostin' It Up
Characters that are killed (hit 0 HP and bleed out after d6 rounds, or reduced to -10 HP) can continue to follow the party as a ghost. They get their full HP back and retain their abilities, but must pay a permanent HP cost each time they wish to affect the real world. Stronger characters with more HP can do more while in ghost form before dissolving away. This gives the dead player something to do before the end of a session, while they wait for their character to be resurrected, or as an alternative to rolling a new character right away.
Structuring For Two Kinds of Gamers
In its presentation, Whitehack 3e is trying to be two different things. The system is newbie friendly while appealing to experienced TTRPG players, but those groups read books differently. I think Whitehack succeeds in supporting both audiences in some respects but falls down in others.
The book starts with a “quick rundown” for these experienced players coming from other games more likely to skim or skip around. Several examples of play are provided before any rules, which is a cool way to get veterans and newbies alike to grasp the vibe and timbre of the system. The examples are quite casual and propose a scenario where the Referee is on equal footing to the players, which makes sense: this is supposed to be a shared conversation about action, with dice used only in cases of uncertainty.
After chapters on creating characters and core rules, a toolkit for adapting content is included with all the expected rules for retainers, an AC conversion table, as well as the welcome inclusion of rules for modern or sci-fi firearms. There's even a corruption system that I would guess is influenced by Swedish classic Mutant. There's plenty here to take or leave as your table wants, much of it encompassing the standard fare that whets the appetites of OSR gamers.
The “How to Run the Game” section includes expected information on running TTRPGs. Particularly novel is a section that directly addresses gripes like “magick is too open-ended” and “characters seem too weak.” The information provided is generally useful, though it goes into much greater depth than I’ve ever seen in an OSR core book, going as far as to provide a framework of an adventure with a dungeon map. What’s more, it provides guidance for creating settings, running campaigns, and there’s even a “story phases” system to help the Referee track the adventure.
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| Can you tell Mehrstam is a programmer? |
For me, this programmatic approach to tracking and cataloging things is way too regimented and complicated. It also drives me crazy that there's tons of space in that graphic to write out Combat and Task and Knowledge, but instead we're using abbreviations. If I were a newbie I would run screaming in the other direction after seeing that chart. As for veterans who have been playing TTRPGs for years, why would they change their tried-and-tested approach?
This Referee guide section occupies more than 20 pages of the book (and note that Whitehack 1e's original claim to fame was its svelte 64 pages, whereas 3e is nearly 160 pages) and I feel it would operate better as a separate publication. Indeed, the advice is great (especially the details on magick artifacts) and would stand on its own merit. Here it feels like equal parts information overload (for newbies) and preaching to the choir (for veterans).
While there is a brief note about acknowledging your own safety, there is no discussion about player safety or setting expectations for content. Because of how in-depth this guide is, it seems like a strange oversight for a modern game. Cramming the equivalent of a Dungeon Master’s Guide into a core rulebook makes a little more sense in the context of all the monsters and magick artifacts included afterward. However, the emphasis on homebrew and worldbuilding gestures toward a desire to move away from running old D&D modules and adventures with Whitehack, which is again dividing the book’s aims.
Whitespace
Given that Whitehack 3e is the result of 8 years of playtesting and development, I’m left disappointed by the organization. Following the growing trend of frontloading character creation, the unfortunate effect is trying to understand class features without context for the rules terminology. The foreword suggests reading the volume cover to cover, but one would be better served to start with the core rules and grasp the mechanics before wading into the character stuff.
Many modern games strive to utilize a single core mechanic (like a d20 roll) and add variances based on the situation. Whitehack does not do this. Each type of roll made with a d20 (saving throws, attacks, trained rolls) is given separate coverage, and these sections are spread out across the book. One might expect the system to stick to the standard practice of older editions, but confusingly initiative rolls use the d6, whereas morale checks are a d20. From what I've seen, it's usually the inverse.
Labels for the various tables in the book are below the graphic in small font. Because some tables are stacked one atop the other without bounding boxes, it’s often unclear which label goes with which table. Some tables are not labeled at all, and others are labeled at the end of the spread, making them nearly useless. If those labels had instead been placed in the same spot on every right-hand page, it might make it easy for a reader to flip through the book and find the table they need.
The book’s minimalist approach to layout works in tandem with the poor table labeling to make it difficult to distinguish one section from the next. Art in Whitehack is spare and understated, but what's missing is the use of art as a landmark to navigate the book. When you spend time with Dungeon Crawl Classics, you can easily find a given section by looking at the page borders. You will know the sections by their splash pages. With Whitehack, it's all... white. Even the character sheet, which only needs to hold a few sentences worth of information, is needlessly split across two pages.
Whitehack's steadfast dedication to encompass oldschool sensibilities also proves an obstacle: you are expected to memorize a variety of two-letter acronyms (Qu. “Quality” Gr. “Groups” Ra. “Raise”) in order to fit more columns into tables. But there’s so much unused space on the page that there is no reason for this economical approach. Shortening the word "Quality" by 5 characters is not necessary. The margins could have easily been reduced by an inch on every side to accommodate the tables. Based on the “notebook” version of the product, the intention may be to include space for the Referee’s marginalia.
Conclusion
Whitehack is an absolutely solid system that deserves the praise it gets. It has its own mojo that I really like, and it's palatable in a way that I bet will appeal to just about anybody at your table. The emphasis on the conversation instead of rolling dice, giving narrative control to players, and its excellent revival of oldschool concepts makes it a standout system. I think that Whitehack efficiently hits all the notes for veterans and newbies alike, but I also feel as though this third edition book tries to do too much all at once. It's bloated with "how to play a TTRPG" junk that feels needless even for new players, and the overall organization suffers for it. If I were to run this game, I'd cut out the necessary pieces into a player-facing packet (probably a Google Doc we can easily edit) and then add on rules or systems to that packet as the game expands or to suit the setting.
I would also name The Strong's special combat options instead of assigning them numbers. The book doesn't even suggest that players name them. They absolutlely should.
"I want to use a special skill!"
"Okay, what is it?"
"Two!"
-entire table stares in confusion-
Worth Borrowing
The miracle magnitude chart, which explains how to adjudicate the cost of a spell based on how large its effect will be, is fantastic. The table of special effects for melee weapons is beautiful and I appreciate all the balancing that went into it. Whitehack's unique system of using Groups to have players create the world is very slick. I think it could serve as a framework to punch up player interaction in other systems, but at that point you might as well just play Whitehack.
This Referee guide section occupies more than 20 pages of the book (and note that Whitehack 1e's original claim to fame was its svelte 64 pages, whereas 3e is nearly 160 pages) and I feel it would operate better as a separate publication. Indeed, the advice is great (especially the details on magick artifacts) and would stand on its own merit. Here it feels like equal parts information overload (for newbies) and preaching to the choir (for veterans).
While there is a brief note about acknowledging your own safety, there is no discussion about player safety or setting expectations for content. Because of how in-depth this guide is, it seems like a strange oversight for a modern game. Cramming the equivalent of a Dungeon Master’s Guide into a core rulebook makes a little more sense in the context of all the monsters and magick artifacts included afterward. However, the emphasis on homebrew and worldbuilding gestures toward a desire to move away from running old D&D modules and adventures with Whitehack, which is again dividing the book’s aims.
Whitespace
Given that Whitehack 3e is the result of 8 years of playtesting and development, I’m left disappointed by the organization. Following the growing trend of frontloading character creation, the unfortunate effect is trying to understand class features without context for the rules terminology. The foreword suggests reading the volume cover to cover, but one would be better served to start with the core rules and grasp the mechanics before wading into the character stuff.
Many modern games strive to utilize a single core mechanic (like a d20 roll) and add variances based on the situation. Whitehack does not do this. Each type of roll made with a d20 (saving throws, attacks, trained rolls) is given separate coverage, and these sections are spread out across the book. One might expect the system to stick to the standard practice of older editions, but confusingly initiative rolls use the d6, whereas morale checks are a d20. From what I've seen, it's usually the inverse.
Labels for the various tables in the book are below the graphic in small font. Because some tables are stacked one atop the other without bounding boxes, it’s often unclear which label goes with which table. Some tables are not labeled at all, and others are labeled at the end of the spread, making them nearly useless. If those labels had instead been placed in the same spot on every right-hand page, it might make it easy for a reader to flip through the book and find the table they need.
The book’s minimalist approach to layout works in tandem with the poor table labeling to make it difficult to distinguish one section from the next. Art in Whitehack is spare and understated, but what's missing is the use of art as a landmark to navigate the book. When you spend time with Dungeon Crawl Classics, you can easily find a given section by looking at the page borders. You will know the sections by their splash pages. With Whitehack, it's all... white. Even the character sheet, which only needs to hold a few sentences worth of information, is needlessly split across two pages.
Whitehack's steadfast dedication to encompass oldschool sensibilities also proves an obstacle: you are expected to memorize a variety of two-letter acronyms (Qu. “Quality” Gr. “Groups” Ra. “Raise”) in order to fit more columns into tables. But there’s so much unused space on the page that there is no reason for this economical approach. Shortening the word "Quality" by 5 characters is not necessary. The margins could have easily been reduced by an inch on every side to accommodate the tables. Based on the “notebook” version of the product, the intention may be to include space for the Referee’s marginalia.
 |
| Instead of tweaking the table design to add two columns, the decision was made to instead make an entire second table on the opposite spread |
Conclusion
Whitehack is an absolutely solid system that deserves the praise it gets. It has its own mojo that I really like, and it's palatable in a way that I bet will appeal to just about anybody at your table. The emphasis on the conversation instead of rolling dice, giving narrative control to players, and its excellent revival of oldschool concepts makes it a standout system. I think that Whitehack efficiently hits all the notes for veterans and newbies alike, but I also feel as though this third edition book tries to do too much all at once. It's bloated with "how to play a TTRPG" junk that feels needless even for new players, and the overall organization suffers for it. If I were to run this game, I'd cut out the necessary pieces into a player-facing packet (probably a Google Doc we can easily edit) and then add on rules or systems to that packet as the game expands or to suit the setting.
I would also name The Strong's special combat options instead of assigning them numbers. The book doesn't even suggest that players name them. They absolutlely should.
"I want to use a special skill!"
"Okay, what is it?"
"Two!"
-entire table stares in confusion-
Worth Borrowing
The miracle magnitude chart, which explains how to adjudicate the cost of a spell based on how large its effect will be, is fantastic. The table of special effects for melee weapons is beautiful and I appreciate all the balancing that went into it. Whitehack's unique system of using Groups to have players create the world is very slick. I think it could serve as a framework to punch up player interaction in other systems, but at that point you might as well just play Whitehack.