Dungeons & Dragons vs The Black Hack
Compare Dungeons & Dragons and The Black Hack side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Dungeons & Dragons | The Black Hack | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Play Style | Tactical, Heroic, Dungeon Crawl, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Beginner-Friendly, Classic Fantasy, Lore-Heavy, Ascending AC | Rules-Light, Dungeon Crawl, Hackable, Beginner-Friendly |
| Core Mechanic | Roll d20 + modifier against a target DC (for ability checks and saving throws) or AC (for attacks). Meeting or exceeding the target succeeds. Advantage rolls 2d20 and takes the higher; disadvantage takes the lower, replacing most situational modifiers. | Players roll d20 under their attribute scores to succeed at actions. Advantage and Disadvantage (roll 2d20, pick best or worst) modify difficulty. Armour provides a pool of d6 Armour Dice that absorb damage. Consumable resources use a Usage Die chain (d20→d12→d10→d8→d6→d4→gone): roll 1–2 to downgrade. |
| Dice | d20 | d20 + d4–d12 |
| Complexity | Medium | Very Low |
| Accessibility | Very High | Very High |
| Runnability | High | Medium |
| License | CC BY 4.0 (SRD); core books proprietary | The Black Hack Open Game License |
| Cost | $$$ | $ |
| Publisher | Wizards of the Coast | Gold Piece Publications |
| Year | 2024 | 2018 |
| Best For | Groups who want heroic fantasy combining tactical grid combat with deep character-build options, scaling from one-shots up through long multi-tier campaigns. | Groups wanting a fast, hackable OSR dungeon-crawling game with modern design sensibilities: roll under attributes, abstract distances, and usage dice that track resources without bookkeeping. |
| Highlights | Advantage and disadvantage collapse most situational modifiers into one mechanic: roll a second d20 and keep the higher or lower, so play rarely stops to total small bonuses. Each of the 12 classes offers four subclasses in the 2024 Player's Handbook, letting players reshape a class's role without multiclassing. Bounded accuracy keeps proficiency bonuses small, so low-level threats stay relevant in numbers and DCs read consistently across all tiers. | Highly hackable: spawned an entire subgenre of 'X Hack' games, core rules fit in about 30 pages, Usage Die tracks resources without inventory math, armour-as-dice-pool adds a tactical layer, conversational writing style makes rules easy to learn |
| Considerations | High-level play (tier 3–4) introduces significant spell interaction complexity and encounter balancing challenges for GMs. No official rules for non-fantasy genres. Three core books at $50 each represent a significant investment for the full rules. | Only 4 classes (Warrior, Thief, Cleric, Wizard) in the core, limited character customization beyond class and background, no setting included, light on GM guidance compared to larger games, may lack depth for long campaigns |