Additionally, I agree with you that roleplaying is also based on what you put into it rather than what the game itself provides out of the box. You can play a roleplaying game with rock-paper-scissors as your decision mechanic and have good roleplaying or poor roleplaying. But the honor mechanic far more supports playing stereotypes, or caricatures, of traditional characters rather than encouraging the development of a unique personality.

The magic system does support the stereotypical “5 minute work day” of older versions of D&D, which is why spellcasters are useless, and I think that healing 1d3 HP once per day is useless as a cleric–but luckily the system offers a stronger Heal skill mechanic which I praised. I did play a cleric, and I agree that its necessary as healers in any system are. Mages are better off than clerics, since they get spell points, but not by a lot.

http://www.kenzerco.com/hackmaster

Character Creation is NOT all Random Rolls. Selecting what skills, talents and proficiencies that you have is all up to the player’s decision. Also, there are game mechanics for swapping around stats and even spending BPs for improving the stats that you rolled.

Sorry, but you are wrong about RolePlay encouragement. Actual Roleplay is encouraged by how much Experience and Honor that you get. Check out pages 27-28. “Roll Playing” and just plain Hacking isn’t going to get a character very much Honor, which leads to early character death.

Also, you are wrong about Mages being weak. Mages can enchance their teammates or even take out several monsters on their own. What Mages are not meant to do is to wade into melee combat. Mages and Clerics are only as weak or strong as the way that they are Played. Good Players can make Mages the most valuable character in the group.

You are also wrong about Exploding Dice. For one thing you’ve got the mechanic slightly wrong. If you roll the max value on a Die, you roll again at -1. Example, if you roll a “6″ on a d6, you roll again, say you roll a second “6″, then you add “5″ to the die roll and roll 1d6-1 again. After over a year of playing I can assure you that you get low rolls, high rolls and medium rolls all the time. Also, ALL Damage Dice, including Spells have Penetrating dice. Notice in the book that little notation notating penetration, i.e. the Spell “Scorch” does 1d3p+6(the little “p” means penetrating die roll). And most Opposed rolls for Everyone, including Spellcasters get Modifiers.

As far as being “Dead from a Random Roll” that is what Honor is for. You spend Honor Points(or use your one time per session Mulligan if you are in Great Honor).

Clerical Magic “Virtually Useless”? Are you sure you are playing “HackMaster Basic” because once again my game play shows exactly the opposite. Cleric is another character class that is a MUST Have for your party.

If you got all of these rules wrong from the GM, then I’d suggest having your GM reread the rules and maybe come by the Kenzer&Co forums to ask some questions. Or play with an experience GM, because honestly, from your review it appears that there were many basic concepts that your group got wrong.