Daniel Thron

HOL is the sort of metagaming humor that buddies create while slouching around an IHOP table at 3 AM-- and in fact, one page of this book appears to have been photocopied right off the placemat. The nominally space opera/post-apocalyptic mash-up sci-fi setting for the game is merely a pretext for elaborate in-jokes about character creation, weapon damage tables, and fast food.

But they're good in-jokes.

The slap-dash, hand-lettered text gives the impression of being written at the speed it was show more imagined, and occasionally competes with the (generous) artwork. In fact, this "rulebook" looks and feels more like an underground comic about games, than a game itself. The author's rules are demonstrated on hapless, pop-eyed victims and waddling beasties called "wastems," and spelling mistakes are not blotted out, but hastily explained away.

Underneath the humor, the game rules themselves are fairly simple (2d6 plus modifier vs. various target numbers for success), but as self-consciously arbitrary as one would expect in a game with stat blocks for both Librarymobile tanks and Mohatma Gandhi.

In all honesty, HOL is probably not a game you and your friends will actually play. It is, however, the gaming book you and your friends will pass around your table at the IHOP, prefacing every passage read aloud with, "Oh, man, listen to this one..." show less

It was 1994 I had just graduated from college and quit working at Hardees and delivering pizza, only to, 3 months later, start working for B'Daltons bookstore at the mall making even less money, because none of the software on my resume was being used anymore and my hair was still down to the middle of my back. Two of my three bands had broken up but no before putting out a vinyl 45 EP. I had stopped playing role playing games because of a new addiction - "Magic the Gathering", that had cool show more art and didn't require a huge time commitment or people being responsible, to play. I was reading Anne Rice and groaning about Tom Cruise being cast as Lestat in the movie.

Just wanted to set the scene of the 90’s, because I feel like it’s the only time HOL could have come out. It’s a gen X rpg, written by snarky gen Xers, for snarky gen Xers. Is it awesome? Yes. Is it playable? Probably not. Are many of the references now outdated? Definitely. It’s a cult favorite and even though this is the first time I’ve ever read more than a page or two of it, I have fond memories of paging through it during my wild 20’s. This time I read the whole thing, because that’s what I do now that I’m middle-aged, but really this kind of book is probably more properly enjoyed in small doses, so as not to get “bored with the joke”. I do really like the art a lot too.

I think where the book fails, other than being a playable game, is in “setting the scene”, we get a small atlas of crazy locales, but how people “live” on the planet HOL is really never talked about. show less