Wednesday, May 26, 2021

Retrospective: Bifrost

When it comes to the rules of roleplaying games, my long-held preference has been toward simplicity. In large part, this is because I'm lazy and cannot be bothered to remember complex rules (a situation that only becomes worse as I get older and my memory grows poorer). At the same time, I recognize the value of greater rules complexity. Almost a decade ago, I had the opportunity to play in a Rolemaster campaign refereed by someone very experienced with the system. In playing it, I came to see the genuine benefits in Rolemaster's higher degree of granularity. Combat, for example, offered a wider range of tactical choices than in Dungeons & Dragons, right down to what weapon my character chose to wield. I had a lot of fun and left the experience with an appreciation of why one might prefer complex rules.

In the years since, I've tried to look at complex RPGs with new, or at least more sympathetic, eyes. My preference for simpler games remains, of course, but I'm now better able to understand why some players and referees see a need for more detailed systems. It's with this perspective that I took a look at Bifrost, a very curious British roleplaying game released in four volumes between 1977 and 1982. The first volume, entitled "Faerie," primarily covers character creation, though it also treats such diverse topics as movement, morale, fatigue, religion, and experience. The subject matter of the second volume, "Combat," is self-explanatory, as is that of the third volume, "Magic." The fourth volume, which bears no title, functions more or less as a referee's volume, offering advice on playing and running the game; it also includes descriptions of many monsters and similar opponents.

The title page of the first volume indicates that the "rules [were] compiled … over the period June 1974 to February 1977" by members of the East London Wargames Group and students at the universities of Newcastle, Bath, and East Anglia. This is important information, since it clearly situates Bifrost within the early wargaming tradition of roleplaying. I think that provides some insight into the peculiarities of the rules, particularly the attention paid to distance, movement, and scale. That said, it's also clear that the game's writers – there are many, varying by volume – understood how fantasy roleplaying games differed from traditional miniatures wargames, despite their continued use of wargaming terminology (and indeed their calling Bifrost a wargame).

Characters in Bifrost are of three types: warriors, wizards, and warrior-wizards. There are a total of twenty abilities, divided into two groups, physical and mental. Initially, ability scores range from 1–20, with most being in the 1–10 range (generated by a 1d10 roll, with a roll of 10 granting a second additive 1d10 roll), but scores can theoretically go much higher through experience. These scores are then cross-referenced and "graded" by means of a chart, with the results of said chart determining bonuses and penalties to attack, defense, casting, and energy. Each ability has its own table, enumerating its benefits based on its score. The overall level of complexity is high, though, to its credit, the rules of Bifrost due seem to take them all into account. Other typical RPG topics, such as, for example, alignment, are similarly complex, with fine gradations between shades of Law, Chaos, Good, and Evil. I found it quite overwhelming.

Reading through Bifrost, it soon became clear that these rules were the result of much thought. The writers wanted the game's rules to be exhaustive and complete, covering as many common elements of fantasy roleplaying campaigns as possible and doing so thoroughly. Consequently, there are lots of cross-referenced tables and charts, derived statistics, and calculations. It's all quite impressive and, on some level admirable. I've noted before that, in many campaigns, rules additions and new interpretations multiply over time, making it increasingly complex and inaccessible to newcomers, even as those deeply involved have little trouble with it. Bifrost has that quality to it. Over the course of its four volumes, it presents rules that probably made a great deal of sense to those who used them but were difficult to fathom by anyone else. 

I can't dismiss Bifrost completely out of hand. I suspect that, in the hands of a capable referee, it could be fun and its detailed rules could be put to great use. Simply reading it, though, it's hard to see this. Bifrost looks like someone's obsessive house rules for their multi-year D&D campaign, which they typed up for distribution to other members of their gaming group. That's not a damning criticism as such, but it's not a recommendation either – especially when you consider that, in 1977 alone, games like Traveller and The Fantasy Trip were being published and both were readily accessible. Even so, I find something strangely fascinating about games like Bifrost and Fantasy Wargaming, products of another age, equal parts imaginative and baffling.

15 comments:

  1. Interesting. I've never heard of this RPG. Is "Bifrost" the name of the game's world?

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    1. The game has no world of its own. It's a generic rules set like D&D.

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  2. As someone who enjoys reading rules and game settings for their own sake I find really crunchy, mechanically complex RPGs fascinating to look at and mull over. Far too many of them are simply impractical to actually use, though. Too difficult to teach to other people, and too involved to ask others to learn on their own. I'll happily play something like (say) Powers & Perils or Space Opera if some madman wants to run, but I won't expect the campaign to last long or get many other players.

    Bifrost sounds like one of those rule sets.

    I think I recall adds for the game in several magazines way back when, although I never saw copies in person.

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    1. We have played Powers & Perils for years,all it requires is a good dungeon master willing to study the rules for a couple of weeks before actually playing the game. It is really a cliché to always cite P&P as unplayable or too bad. Usually Often it is just a matter of laziness on the part of the gamers

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    2. Heh! Yeah, me Kaptain Krunch, too! Aftermath is my particular poison with Space Opera and RoleMaster running close neck-and-neck . . . .

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    3. That cliche exists for good reason, and note that I didn't say it was either bad or unplayable. It is, however, not easy to teach and even you admit it takes weeks of study to run, which puts it solidly in the "impractical" category for me. That was true when it was released (and ripped to shreds in multiple reviews) and it's even more true these days when the fashion in design is ease of accessibility and user-friendly writing. That's something many OSR authors strive for as well, so not simply a modern trend to sneer at the kids for liking.

      As for my personal laziness, you are fortunately not the boss of me.

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    4. @catacomb librarian:
      Laziness? How many rules systems do I need to be familiar with to not be a lazy player? There are only thousands of them out there and more every day.

      Seriously, for swords and sorcery, AD&D works perfectly. I'm already familiar with it, so are many other prospective players, it's been fine tuned with house rules for decades, and it has the added benefit of nostalgia, which goes a long way.

      To me, the rules are the least interesting part of a game. Every hour spent mastering a new set of rules is an hour not spent playing.

      Memorize yet another system? Come on already. Let's play!

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  3. Bifrost is a bridge to another world...
    Thanks for highlighting this game. I had never heard of it, but it sounds worth reading, if only as a "curiosity" from the early days.

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  4. I don't remember if I saw Vol 1 in the store or just in White Dwarf adds. I feel like I did see it in the store. I've long been curious about it (which has recently been satisfied). The title and cover sure is cool and evocative. I never saw any of the other volumes back in the day (which makes me think I DID see it in my FLGS).

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  5. I've never heard of it, I wonder if the lads at the Grognard Files have?

    Is there anything good or unique about the magic system that is worth noting?

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    1. It's hard to say. The system is point-based and divides spells up into black, white, and grey arts, but it doesn't immediately seem to do anything special beyond that. I'll admit I didn't look at the rules closely, though, so perhaps I am missing something.

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  6. Very complex rule sets can be handled well by computer RPGs, given that they're debugged well enough that the game actually plays the rule set as written. The player can engage with the "crunch" as far as he finds it rewarding; past that, he can just acquire habits that succeed in game.

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  7. All I know is that it is pretty collectable and rare. It's out there on the intarwebz, I saw it years ago and was excited after seeing the collector hype. My eyes started to glaze over fairly quickly after taking a gander at it.

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  8. What got me was "Almost a decade ago". It really was, wasn't it?

    It doesn't feel like it.

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  9. "The Catacomb Librarian" treated it as a Holy Grail for some time.

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