A brilliantly transgressive work, the Hit a Dude: World Players Guide #1 explores the "freemium" model applied to a non-video game (even describing the transcendent genre of Hit a Dude makes a review difficult) for the full game is available at hitadude.com, but supplements such as this that clarify the world in which Hit a Dude takes place while providing optional rules, settings, and characters is available at a cost. Indeed, you might not think of this as a $3.50, two page supplement, but instead as a $3.50 donation to the Hit a Dude foundation (whose work worldwide we all know) that happens to come with a game expansion.
As mentioned, there are new rules for Hit a Dude (completely optional, of course, but thoroughly vetted by a team of game developers), a series of settings that may seem familiar and even a bit sly, some clarifications, and a few hints at the people that inhabit the world of Hit a Dude. Harkening back to the setting excesses of 90s supplements, the details are not even called out as fodder for your Hit a Dude games, but instead, done through narrators that serve to fully immerse you in the world of Hit a Dude. Likewise, you may even discover by interpreting the text that you have been playing Hit a Dude at some different key junctures in your life without even realizing it!
For Hit a Dude fans who have processed the game (truly a monumental undertaking for which I commend you), the World Players Guide #1 may serve to further enlighten you as to the nature of the game and hold up a mirror to ourselves as we, in our daily lives, go on about our regular quest to "hit a dude." This makes it an invaluable supplement to the die-hard HaDers. To the rest who dismiss the intricacies of Hit a Dude as merely being a controversial morass of violence and unanswered questions, this will only serve to muddy your existence further, and leave you unprepared for the time in which you too might be called upon to Hit a Dude.
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