Retrospective: Nephilim

I think anyone who's been deeply involved in the hobby of roleplaying games for any length of time will eventually come across a game with which they become obsessed – not necessarily because they actually play it but because the game's concept or presentation happen to strike an unexpected chord with him. Over the decades since I was initiated into this hobby, I've had several such games. The one I want to talk about in this post continues to be an object of fascination for me more than 30 years after its publication, both for its virtues and its flaws. It's a game that I think could have been bigger and more successful than it was, if only it hadn't been produced by Chaosium in the mid-90s, a time of particular turmoil for the venerable California game company.

The English version of Nephilim – I have never seen any of the French editions – appeared on the scene in 1994. Though sometimes compared (favorably or otherwise) to White Wolf's "World of Darkness" games for its superficial similarity, Nephilim was in fact distinct because of its deep immersion in real world occultism, esotericism, and philosophy. This fact probably played a role in its limited impact on the wider RPG scene at the time. At best, Nephilim was, no pun intended, a cult classic, admired by some for its unique vision and polarizing to others due to its complexity and mysticism. With the benefit of hindsight, Nephilim appears to be a game that feels both ahead of and constrained by its time, with an ambitious yet flawed attempt to merge the metaphysical with the game mechanical.

Nephilim places the players in the roles of titular Nephilim, powerful elemental spirits who have been reincarnating through human bodies for millennia. These beings seek enlightenment and ultimate mastery over magic, all while hiding from secret societies such as the Templars and other forces bent on suppressing their supernatural influence. The game draws heavily from esoteric traditions, like alchemy, the Kabbalah, astrology, and the Tarot, in order to create a setting that’s more intellectual than visceral. The world of Nephilim isn’t about heroics or adventure in the traditional sense, but about the slow, unfolding journey of self-discovery, spiritual awakening, and the management of hidden knowledge.

The beauty of this game lies in its depth. The Nephilim characters are not ordinary adventurers but beings of great power, constantly at odds with the limitations of human existence. Reincarnation plays a central role: your character may have lived many lives, across different times and places, and will continue to do so for eternity. This concept of eternal recurrence provides a wealth of roleplaying opportunities, as players are tasked with piecing together fragmented memories and uncovering truths hidden in past lives. This frame invites a certain kind of player, one interested in exploring questions about identity, morality, and immortality against the backdrop of occult mysticism.

However, this central conceit is also a double-edged sword. The complex background of the game, while rich, can feel inaccessible to players unfamiliar with occultism or those simply hoping for a more traditional fantasy adventure. Nephilim doesn’t offer the more traditional gratifications of slaying monsters and looting treasure; it instead asks players to navigate a web of arcane lore and hidden agendas, which can be overwhelming or unsatisfying for those unprepared for its slow pace.

The game’s mechanics are built around the Basic Role-Playing system, which was a wise choice, because it was familiar to fans of Call of Cthulhu and RuneQuest, both of whom might well be interested in the subject matter of Nephilim. However, the game doesn’t fully embrace the simplicity of BRP. Instead, it introduces several layers of complexity with its systems for magic, past lives, and the metaphysical forces known as Ka.

The Ka system is central to the game, representing the elemental forces that shape each Nephilim. It’s a fascinating concept that ties into character development and the use of magic, but it can also become a burden to manage. Characters must balance their elemental affinities, harnessing them to gain power or enlightenment, but doing so requires a deep understanding of the system. The Ka system, while thematically rich, often feels clunky and opaque, especially for players who are more accustomed to streamlined mechanics.

The magic system is similarly intricate. Divided into a series of occult sciences – alchemy, astrology, summoning, and more – each one presents unique rules, rituals, and challenges. While these magical systems offer a degree of customization, they can quickly overwhelm players. The complexity isn’t inherently a problem, but the lack of clear guidance on how to use these systems often leaves players floundering. Nephilim can thus feel like a game in search of a user manual, where the richness of its background material is undermined by the difficulty of navigating its rules.

Further, the game's character creation is a daunting process, involving past lives, elemental alignments, and a variety of other factors that require significant attention to detail. While this deep character customization can be incredibly rewarding for dedicated players, it can also be a barrier to entry. Newcomers may find themselves lost in the weeds of the system before even getting to the heart of the game.

One of Nephilim's strongest aspects is its presentation. The art and layout, while not groundbreaking by modern standards, exude a gothic, surreal quality that perfectly complements the game’s mystical themes. The illustrations are dark, moody, and evocative, which nicely complements the atmosphere of the game, even if they occasionally obscure the clarity of the text.

At the same time, Nephilim's presentation does suffer from the typical issues found in many early '90s RPGs, such as dense blocks of text, inconsistent layout, and a tendency to overload players with information without clear guidance. The mysticism that pervades the game is often reflected in the game’s writing style, which can occasionally veer toward the impenetrable. This is a game that assumes players are already familiar with esoteric traditions and it doesn’t always make the effort to ease new players into its complex world.

At its best, Nephilim offered a unique approach to supernatural-themed RPGs, one that blended philosophy, magic, and exploration in a way that was unusual at the time (and probably still is). The game's background is rich with possibility and its mechanics take a "contemplative" approach to character growth and development. For those willing to put in the effort to understand the system and immerse themselves in the game’s themes, Nephilim could offer a truly unique roleplaying experience.

Unfortunately, I suspect that rarely happened. Nephilim has a lot of flaws. The complexity of its rules and the obscure nature of its background material can, as I said, be off-putting for many players. Its occult focus, while a selling point for some, may feel inaccessible or even pretentious to others. The game is undoubtedly aimed at a niche audience – players willing to invest time in deciphering its symbolism and mastering its systems – which no doubt played a role in its inability to achieve broader appeal.

If Nephilim had received better and more consistent support from Chaosium, or perhaps a streamlined edition, it might have had a much greater impact on the RPG world. Instead, it remains a fascinatingly flaw relic of the 1990s. Nevertheless, I continue to be intrigued by it and hope that, one day, I might have the chance to do something with it. It's definitely a contender for the RPG with which I'd most love to referee a long campaign, even if the odds of that are unlikely. 

REVIEW: Dragonbane

Last month, I mentioned that, because of the extended absence of a player in my ongoing Dolmenwood campaign, one of the other players offered to run a short adventure using Free League's Dragonbane rules. Despite my own deficiencies as a player, I welcomed this, both as a nice break from my own weekly refereeing duties and because I'd actually wanted to give Dragonbane a proper playtest. I've had a copy of the game for about two years and it wasn't until now that an opportunity to actually make use of it arose.

We concluded our playtest earlier this week and, as I expected I would, I had a great time. Originally, my intention was to write a short follow-up to the post linked above, in which I offered some further thoughts about the game. However, as I did so, I soon realized that my “short follow-up” was rapidly turning into something closer to full-on review, The result is what you're reading now, though be warned that this will be a somewhat idiosyncratic review based largely on my own interests rather a more "general" assessment of the game.

Case in point: I come at Dragonbane from the perspective of someone who's played a lot of Dungeons & Dragons over the decades. And while it's never been my system of choice, I also have a deep respect for Chaosium’s Basic Role-Playing, upon which Dragonbane's Swedish-language predecessor, Drakar och Demoner, was based. Consequently, I approached Dragonbane with a great deal of curiosity. I was eager to see how it would blend its BRP heritage with a more streamlined framework. After several sessions, I can confidently say Dragonbane delivers a fun, engaging experience that bridges the gap between D&D’s broad fantasy and BRP’s more grounded, skill-driven mechanics.

As I said, Dragonbane is built on the bones of Basic Role-Playing, a system known for its granular, skill-based mechanics. Free League, however, has distilled this foundation into something far lighter and more approachable, swapping BRP’s percentile dice for a d20-based system that might feel more familiar to D&D players. Character creation is quick: choose a kin (human, elf, dwarf, or even anthropomorphic creatures like wolfkin or mallard), a profession (knight, mage, artisan, etc.), and assign points to skills. Unlike the sometimes-fiddly process of building a Call of Cthulhu or RuneQuest character, Dragonbane keeps things brisk, almost rivaling old-school D&D’s straightforwardness even while retaining BRP’s emphasis on skills over character classes.

The core mechanic – roll a d20 under your skill or attribute score – will probably feel like second nature to BRP veterans, but the system’s boons and banes (the advantage/disadvantage mechanic that seems to be in every RPG these days) simplify modifiers in a way that keeps play moving. Opposed rolls and critical successes/failures add further depth without being overwhelming. For a D&D player, the shift from class-and-level progression to skill-based improvement is definitely a change. Even so, Dragonbane never feels too alien, aided not just by its use of d20 rolls but also its reliance on familiar fantasy archetypes (knights, rogues, mages, etc.).

One of Dragonbane’s most distinctive mechanical features is its use of willpower points. These function as a limited but flexible resource that can be spent to fuel both heroic abilities and spells or to reroll a failed skill check. I liked how this gave players a choice during play: burn a willpower point now to avoid a blunder or save it for a special combat move or spell later. It adds a welcome layer of resource management without being overly complex. 

Dragonbane thus feels both flexible and grounded. It lacks the sprawling feat trees or subclass options of, say, WotC-era Dungeons & Dragons, but compensates with a system that rewards player ingenuity. For some BRP fans, it's possible the game might seem too pared down. Where are the hit locations or complex magic systems of RuneQuest? But, for someone like me, more accustomed to D&D’s approach to these things, the streamlined rules felt right, emphasizing speed of play over simulationist detail.

As I noted in my earlier post, combat is where Dragonbane really shines and, as someone who often finds RPG combat a functional but unexciting necessity, I was glad of it. The system strikes a nice balance between simplicity and tactical depth, offering a dynamic experience that rivals D&D’s ease of use while avoiding the slog of overly complex BRP combat.

Each round, players draw initiative cards (reshuffled every round for unpredictability) and can move and act, with heroic abilities or even weapon choices allowing for creative flourishes. The card-based initiative is very simple and straightforward. Players can trade initiative or act out of turn in certain situations, which I found helps to keep everyone engaged. Combat maneuvers like disarming, grappling, or shoving provide further tactical options without requiring constant reference to the rulebook. Mechanics like morale checks and weapon durability add yet more stakes and flavor. For example, a critical hit includes the possibility of increased damage, ignoring armor, or gaining an additional attack.

Another feature I appreciated is the way Dragonbane distinguishes between monsters and NPCs. While NPCs use the same mechanics as player characters, monsters do not roll to attack. Instead, they act according to randomly determined behavior tables, intended to simplify referee workload and to reinforce the idea that monsters are unpredictable forces of nature. It’s an interesting design choice, but I'm not yet certain whether it works as well as intended. I'd need to play more to see how well it holds up to repeated use.

Compared to D&D and its descendants, where combat can feel like a regular cycle of attack rolls and spell slots, Dragonbane combat feels more unpredictable. Hit point totals are fairly low, which keeps fights brisk and the risk of injury or equipment failure makes every combat potentially deadly. BRP players will recognize the system’s DNA, but Dragonbane trims the fat, avoiding much of the bookkeeping that can bog down RuneQuest battles. The result is a combat system that’s both approachable and exciting, encouraging clever play without relying on too many subsystems or edge cases.

Dragonbane doesn’t come with a very detailed campaign setting of its own. Instead, its implied setting is gritty but evocative and seemed to me to take some inspiration from fairy tales (an impression born no doubt of its artwork, done by Johan Egerkrans, who also provided illustrations for the explicitly fairy tale-inspired Vaesen). The profession options suggest a world where heroism is hard-won, not guaranteed. Magic is potent but rare and monsters feel dangerous. This tone aligns more, I think, with games like RuneQuest than Dungeons & Dragons as it's often played, though the game seems flexible enough to handle varying degrees of character skill and power.

Free League’s production quality is, as usual, stellar. The rulebook included with the boxed set is relatively concise (112 pages) yet comprehensive. The set also includes dice, cards, and a second, 116-page book containing eleven sample adventures that can be strung together to form a campaign, making it a complete package for new players. Compared to a lot of RPGs these days, Dragonbane feels leaner and more focused, while still offering enough material to fuel a campaign. BRP fans accustomed to Chaosium’s dense rulebooks might find Dragonbane’s comparative brevity a relief.

In the end, I came away from our Dragonbane playtest impressed, not just by the mechanics, but by how much fun I had. It reminded me that a well-designed game doesn't need to be complex to offer meaningful choices and satisfying play. As someone who usually sits behind the referee’s screen, it was a pleasure to be a player again, especially in a system that hit such a sweet spot between familiarity and innovation. I’m glad I finally got to give Dragonbane a try and I hope I have the chance to return to it again in the future.

sha-Arthan Combat

Mechanically, Secrets of sha-Arthan began as a variant on Moldvay/Cook Dungeons & Dragons, because I'm a big fan of that version of D&D, which is easy to learn and to play. However, as I've worked on it and playtested bits of it, several elements – for example, the magic system – have diverged more and more from B/X, to the point where it's becoming more of its own thing. I'm fine with that, since, at the end of the day, my first priority is to make a game I like. However, I do hope that, when I'm done (whenever that might be), it'll also be something others might enjoy, too.

Lately, I've been experimenting with some ideas related to the combat system. Most significant among these ideas is that player character hit point totals are mostly static and equal to one of the character's ability scores. So, for example, if the character's score in relevant ability is 12, he has 12 hit points. This makes beginning characters quite a bit tougher than a typical 1st-level D&D character, who might have half that many hit points to start. However, I don't envisage those 12 hit points ever really increasing with experience, except perhaps in small ways here and there.

This is a big change from D&D and its derivatives, though very much in line with games like RuneQuest and other members of the Basic Role-Playing family. Having played many BRP games over the years, I do appreciate the benefits of non-inflationary hit points. For one thing, combats are generally much more dangerous, since a single lucky hit is capable of knocking a character out of a fight, if not outright killing him. That means players have to think twice about rushing into battle and, when they do so, they have to rely on planning and superior skill, not simply bags of hit points, to achieve victory. 

On the other hand, precisely because of combat's deadliness, BRP games include a lot of ways to potentially mitigate that deadliness. For example, the combat rules include active defense maneuvers, like dodging and parrying. The rules also include ablative armor that lessens any damage that makes it through those defenses. These are welcome aspects of the combat rules, but there's no question that their inclusion slows down play in a way that D&D's relatively simple and abstract combat rules do not. As a guy who usually finds combat the least interesting aspect of most RPGs, fast and simple better suits my preferences.

Yet, I'm still playing around with ways to keep hit point totals low and combats quick and deadly in Secrets of sha-Arthan. It's proving to be harder than I thought it would, for some of the reasons I've already mentioned. Though BRP-style combat historically grew out of early attempts to regularize OD&D combat and make it more "realistic," it did so at the cost of speed. Finding a way to thread the needle between the elegance of D&D's combat system and the perilous nature of BRP's equivalent is tough, or at least I'm finding it so. 

Consequently, I'd love to hear more from people who have long experience with BRP in any of its forms. Is there a way to have your cake and eat it too? Can I get the best of both worlds? Fast, simple combat that nevertheless has some tactical depth, with lower hit points and active defense? Or is this a fool's errand and I should just abandon the attempt? I'd love to know your thoughts. 

ElfQuest Returns

I've been an admirer of Chaosium boxed sets for a long time and consider many of them to be among the best RPG products ever released. That's why I was very quick to snap up the 40th anniversary reprint of Call of Cthulhu the company announced in 2021. Building on that success, Chaosium announced another re-release of a classic Basic Role-Playing-derived game, ElfQuest.

The remastered set will come in a 2" box and include not only the 2nd edition ElfQuest rulebook and related materials, but also The ElfQuest Companion, The Sea Elves, and Elf War supplements. Though I don't count myself a fan of ElfQuest, this announcement nevertheless makes me very happy. I love it when old RPGs are faithfully re-released for a new generation of fans to discover and appreciate. Chaosium has a very good track record when it comes to projects like this, so I think anyone who is an ElfQuest fan would do well to take a serious look at this.  

REVIEW: Basic Roleplaying Universal Game Engine

When it comes to venerable roleplaying game systems, the percentile skill-driven one first introduced in 1978's RuneQuest is unquestionably one of the most enduring and influential. Two years later, Chaosium released it as a separate 16-page booklet entitled Basic Role-Playing, which it then used as the foundation upon which to build many other classic RPGs, from Call of Cthulhu to Stormbringer to Worlds of Wonder. In the years since, many other games published by Chaosium and other companies have either directly made use of these rules or have been inspired by them. Like D&D's class-and-level system or the point-buy system of Champions, there can be no question that BRP is a mainstay of the hobby.

Consequently, I was not at all surprised when Chaosium announced last year that a new edition of the game system would be released and released under the Open RPG Creative (ORC) License so that third parties could freely produce their own RPGs using this time-honored system. Of course, this latest iteration of Basic Roleplaying – take note of the disappearance of the hyphen – is a lot beefier than its original iteration. Weighing in at 256 pages, this latest version of the game is, in some ways, a bit more like GURPS in that it offers a large menu of rules options to choose from in creating one's own skill-driven RPG. This is a toolkit and not every tool is needed for every BRP-based game or campaign. 

Despite the wide array of options available, drawn from an array of sources, the fundamentals of BRP remain largely the same since their first appearance more than four decades ago. Characters possess seven characteristics – Strength, Constitution, Size, Intelligence, Power, Dexterity, and Charisma – and a number of points with which to purchase skills. However, how those scores are generated, how many skills points are available, and so on are subject to multiple options. There are even optional characteristics, like Education, that a referee can choose to use if he so desires. The skill list, too, is customizable, as are the "powers" available to characters, like magic, mutations, or psychic abilities. This level of customization sets the tone for the entire book, hence my earlier reference to GURPS.

It's important to point out, though, that Basic Roleplaying includes lots of examples and advice throughout, in order both to illustrate the range of options and the pros and cons of making use of them. This is important, I think, because the book is dense and I can easily imagine that its density might be off-putting to newcomers. Even with all of the examples and advice, this probably isn't an easy book for inexperienced roleplayers to digest. There's a lot within its 256 pages and, while clearly written, even I found myself frequently flipping back and forth between sections to make sense of what I'd just read. I don't mean this as a damning criticism, but it's a reality nonetheless.

Ultimately, this is a danger all "universal" game systems must face. In an effort to include rules and procedures for anything that might come up in genres of games as different as fantasy and science fiction or modern-day and ancient world, the page count will inevitably rise. This is especially true for a game system like Basic Roleplaying, whose overall philosophy tends toward simulation, especially with regards to actions like combat. When one takes into account all the options available for nearly everything – including options that simplify the rules – the end result is undeniably ponderous. 

Again, I say this not as a criticism but rather as an observation. Anyone who's played more than one BRP-based game knows how much they can differ from one another, in terms not just of content and focus but also in terms of complexity. Combat in RuneQuest, for example, is vastly more complicated than in Call of Cthulhu, never mind Pendragon. Yet, all three RPGs share unmistakable similarities that make it easier to pick up and play one if you already know how to play another, despite their differences. Basic Roleplaying provides rules, options, and guidance for building games as distinct as these and many more. I was genuinely amazed by the range of alternatives presented in this book, which is indeed a great strength. With this book, a referee would have no need for any others in constructing the BRP RPG to suit him and his players.

As a physical object, Basic Roleplaying is impressive, too. I own the hardcover version, which is sturdy and well-bound, with thick, parchment-like paper. The book is nicely illustrated with full-color art throughout. The layout is clear but dense, with the text being quite small in places (praise Lhankor Mhy for progressive lenses!). I haven't seen the PDF version, so I can't speak to its quality, but I cannot imagine it's much different. Since almost the entirety of its text has been released under the ORC License, you can take a look at its System Reference Document to see exactly what the book contains. If you do so, I think you'll understand what I mean about its density. At the same time, I'm very glad I own a physical copy of the book, but then I'm an old man who hates reading electronic documents, particularly long and complex ones like this book.

All that said, Basic Roleplaying is an excellent resource for anyone interested in using BRP for their own campaigns, regardless of the setting or genre. I highly recommend it.

Basic Roleplaying: The Universal Game Engine

Over at their official blog, Chaosium recently announced that a new edition of Basic Role-Playing – or should I say Basic Roleplaying, since the old school hyphenation is no more? – is on the way, with a PDF version appearing next month and a hardcover release sometime later this year. This edition represents not only an updating of the popular and successful BRP rules, but also the first time that these rules have been released as royalty-free open content. 

After the brouhaha earlier this year about the status of the Open Game License, I'm not at all surprised that Basic Roleplaying is being released under the terms of the Open RPG Creative License (ORC) created by Paizo. As I recall, Chaosium was an early supporter of this alternate license and it appears their commitment to it has not wavered. I'll admit I haven't been following the development of ORC at all since its initial announcement, so I can't say for certain if BRP is the first significant RPG to be released under its terms or not. Regardless, the publication of an open version of this venerable and respected ruleset is significant.

As an admirer of the original, I'm happy to see BRP continue to thrive well into the 21st century, though I still hold out hopes that Chaosium might one day publish a slimmer version of it more akin to the one included in my 1st edition Call of Cthulhu boxed set way back in 1981. In any case, I'll be keeping an eye on this and hope it might lead to a wider appreciation of these classic roleplaying game rules.

The Least Important Attribute

I was recently poring over a number of different RPGs to see how they defined and handled ability scores. One of the games I examined was Chaosium's 1981 game, Stormbringer, written by Ken St. Andre and Steve Perrin. Section 2.1.7 of its rulebook says the following about the attribute of Charisma:

This is a measure of leadership, charm, and of personality. It is not necessarily a measure of physical beauty, although it may be used as such from time to time. CHA helps your character in dealings with other player and non-player characters. In reality, it is the least important attribute. (italics mine)

Charisma (or its equivalent) is regularly deemed a "dump stat" in many RPGs, but I think this is the first time the text of a game explicitly makes this claim. The irony is that, while Charisma isn't as broadly useful as many other attributes in Stormbringer, it nevertheless plays a role in demon summoning and binding – significant activities in the world of the Young Kingdoms. Still, I find this section of the rulebook fascinating, since it would seem to be a rare instance of the designers speaking directly to the reader about the relative utility of some aspect of the game's rules.

Learning by Experience

As you've no doubt noticed, I've lately been pondering the way that Dungeons & Dragons handles experience. In particular, I've found myself somewhat dissatisfied by the way the game ties advancement in every field to advancement in level. I fully understand why D&D works this way and can respect the decision. For certain styles of RPG campaigns, I actually think it's a very good choice. For others, particularly those where cultural immersion is an important part of the fun, it's somewhat limiting (and, dare I say, unrealistic?). 

Consequently, I find myself being drawn more and more to the approach to experience in Chaosium's Basic Role-Playing family of games. Now, BRP is quite unlike D&D in its design, being almost entirely skill-based, so there are limits to the lessons that can be drawn from it. Even so, there's a lot I like about its design, such as learning by experience, as presented in this section from the second edition of RuneQuest:

This version of learning by experience is, in my opinion, more complicated than it needs to be in its specifics. Call of Cthulhu – at least in its classical version; I can't speak to the current edition – makes use of a simpler version. Other BRP games employ their own variations. What matters to me is the basic conception of tracking individual advancement in each area of character's competency (skills), not any particular implementation of it. Indeed, I think it might well be possible to come up with a simpler application of it that nevertheless retains the core idea.

I don't know. My thinking is all over the place at the moment and I apologize if my recent spate of posts on experience and levels doesn't completely make sense. I suppose I am thinking aloud in order to decide what I like and want as I puzzle my way through the design of Secrets of sha-Arthan. Ultimately, my goal is a set of rules that is straightforward, if not not necessarily simple, and that is robust enough to handle a setting that's as culturally immersive as Glorantha, Jorune, or Tékumel (all of which are, to varying degrees, influences upon sha-Arthan). 

As always, I appreciate your comments.

Thinking about Skills

In the early days of the Old School Renaissance, much virtual ink spelled on the question of the merits and utility of skills in Dungeons & Dragons and RPGs derived from it. Much of the debate at the time centered on the thief, since it was the first character class in the game to possess explicit skills with a variable chance of success. I don't want to rehearse all the arguments for and against skills in D&D, since I think they're pretty well known by now. More to the point, I don't think many opinions are going to be changed one way or the other by doing so. 

For myself, I don't have any objection to skills per se. I certainly don't think skills are in any way contrary to the spirit of old school gaming, unless "old school" is taken to mean primitivism. Even then, the case against skills is weak, since Empire of the Petal Throne, published by TSR in 1975, a year after the release of OD&D, includes a skill system. Likewise, many other RPGs published within a few years of Dungeons & Dragons, such as Traveller, include skills and skill systems. If they don't qualify as "old school," I'm not sure what the word means.

All that said, I nevertheless do have some reservations about the inclusion of skills in a game with character classes, since I think they can undermine the uniqueness (and indeed purpose) of character classes. A lot depends, I think, on how skills are conceived in a game, but, by and large, it's generally my opinion that, if you have an extensive skill list and a mechanical system to support it, there's really no need for character classes. 

The fine folks over at Chaosium would seem to have shared this perspective, since RuneQuest, an old school fantasy RPG with a skill system, has "no artificial character classes." While I don't agree that character classes are necessarily artificial, I do think that a robust skill system tends, at the very least, to weaken the mechanical role of character classes, if not completely eliminate the need for them. Consequently, I've largely come to conclude that D&D and RuneQuest (or Basic Role-Playing, if you prefer) represent two different but equally coherent approaches to mechanizing characters in a roleplaying game. Neither is inherently better than the other; both have their place. 

My thoughts on this at the moment arise out of my continued work on sha-Arthan, my science fantasy setting. Originally, I thought of the setting as a natural fit for something obviously D&D-like, hence why my initial work included the creation of new character classes, including several intended for solely for the nonhuman species of sha-Arthan. One of those new character classes, the scion, was distinguished primarily by its collection of skills, which, while different from those of the thief, functioned very similarly to them. I tweaked the scion's skill list often and, in doing so, found myself adding a skill here or a skill there to other classes, in order to better represent what I saw as each class's purpose within the setting. Eventually, I found myself pondering an even broader skill system for all classes and the raison d'être of the scion largely evaporated. So, I went back to the drawing board.

Now, I find myself thinking about scrapping character classes entirely and going for something more like Basic Role-Playing, allowing the player to decide what skills his character possesses from a list available to all characters. There are definite advantages to this approach and it's certainly worked well for games like RuneQuest. Still, part of me likes the simplicity of character classes. They're a great way for newcomers to get into a game, especially a game whose setting, like that of sha-Arthan, is a little more complex than that of vanilla fantasy. 

I'm still pondering the issue and have come to no firm conclusions yet. I imagine that, as I develop the setting more, I may get a clearer picture of the best way forward.

An Experiment

Dritlor (Doomed Dead)

The people of Inba Iro burn their dead, believing the soul can only return to the eternal gods if so liberated from the prison of the flesh. For this reason, the priests of Jilho the Protector deny condemned lawbreakers cremation. Through sorcery, they instead compel them to serve after execution as guardians of the upper levels of the Vaults. Only fire can permanently end a dritlor's earthly bondage or else it reanimates not long after its apparent destruction. 

STR 2d6+6 (13), CON 1d6 (4), DEX 3d6 (11), SIZ 3d6 (11), INT 0, POW 0, CHA 0, HP 8, DM 0, MP 0, MR 15, Armor Leather (2), Treasure 0, Dodge 10%, Persistence 100%, Resilience 100%, Close Combat 35%: Longspear (1d8), Medium Shield (1d6)

• Guardians: Always attacks on sight
• Undead: Immune to all diseases, fatigue, poisons, and mind control.
• Reanimation: If destroyed (0hp), stitches itself back together to full hp and fights again after 2d6 rounds.
• Fire: Cannot reanimate if burned after destruction.

A dritlor by Zhu Bajiee

Simplifying BRP Combat?

I'd like to call upon the wisdom of readers with long experience playing games derived from Chaosium's Basic Role-Playing. Lately, I've been looking with less judgmental eyes on RuneQuest and finding within it – I speak of its 1979 second edition rather than its current iteration – worthy of greater admiration, both for its setting and for its rules, both of which really were ahead of their time.

Nevertheless, one aspect of RQ continues to bedevil me, namely combat. BRP combat, particularly in its RuneQuest iteration, is much more fiddly than I'd like. The combination of strike ranks, attack rolls, defense rolls, criticals, impales, fumbles, hit locations, and armor absorption is simply too much for my feeble mind to handle. A lifetime of playing Dungeons & Dragons has, by and large, mentally conditioned me for fast and simple combats, each round of which can be resolved with only a couple of dice rolls and the most basic of math. RuneQuest is several steps more complex than I enjoy. And yet I can't deny that there can be many benefits from complexity. I sometimes mention that, a few years ago, I had the opportunity to play Rolemaster with a referee who knew its rules well and helped make the process of using them relatively painless for me. As a consequence, I re-evaluated my older assessment of them as too arcane for my tastes. Perhaps the same is true of RuneQuest's combat system? 

That's why I'd like to hear from anyone who's refereed an RQ campaign for some length. What was your experience with combat? Did you find a way to make it run more quickly and smoothly? Is there some crucial insight into its workings that might help me overcome my concern about its fiddliness? Alternately, is there some iteration of BRP that manages to streamline combat without losing too much detail? I know that OpenQuest is well regarded in some quarters, but I haven't kept up with its development since its original release. Is that still a good option or are there others I should consider? Shower me with your thoughts on this, please.

A Radical Proposal

I've lately been thinking about ability scores – the actual numbers associated with any given ability – and how they might be made to serve a more direct purpose in OD&D and games derivative of it. This has led me down some strange paths, some of which I'll probably start sharing over the coming weeks. For the moment, though, I want to present one of the more radical of them, pertaining to Constitution and the generation of hit points.

My idea, partly inspired by Basic Role-Playing, is that a newly generated character starts the campaign with a number of hit points equal to his Constitution score plus a fixed amount based on his class (the fixed amount is gained at every level, including first). This is obviously a huge change, since it would make 1st-level characters vastly more durable (even with a below average CON score) than standard OD&D characters. Over time, though, the numbers would even out, so that, by 6th or 7th level, the totals would be quite similar on average. To see what I mean, let's compare the average hit points of a Supplement I fighter and magic-user with 11 Constitution to their equivalents under this new system I've imagined.

This obviously represents a huge shift in thinking, not simply because of the increased durability of low to mid-level characters, but also because hit point increases are now fixed (+3 per level for formerly d8 hit dice, +2 per level for d6, and +1 per level for d4). This makes a high Constitution an extremely valuable asset, particularly at 1st level. On the other hand, hit points are kept much lower overall. Under Supplement I, a fighter with 18 Constitution and maximum rolls could have almost 100 hit points at 9th level, whereas, under this proposal, a fighter with the same CON would have less than half that. 

Naturally, for the proposal to work, there'd have to be a similar shift in the way that monster hit points were calculated, as well as possibly the damage ranges of weapons. Not having tested this, I don't yet have any way of knowing how this would play out or what sorts of unforeseen consequences might emerge from its adoption. At the moment, it's just an idle thought stemming from my desire to see the numerical scores of abilities in OD&D have more meaning beyond being an index on a chart. 

RIP Steve Perrin (1946–2021)

As some of you have no doubt heard, Steve Perrin, one of designers of RuneQuest (and, through it, Basic Role-Playing and all the other RPGs based on it), has died at the age of 75. I don't know that I can do him a better tribute than that posted on the Chaosium blog yesterday, so I'm simply going to quote from it:

He is one of our Great Old Ones. An innovative genius who helped pave the way for us to exist today, delighting gamers while they sit around a table, in person or online, exploring stories and adventures together, weaving new tales of derring-do. RuneQuest and Superworld were his children, and his imprint on so many of our other games is indelibly present.

Many of us grew up playing his games. He was the uncle we admired, envied, and listened to for his wise counsel. In the last few years, as a new edition of RuneQuest was born he was there, his wisdom and experience reminding us of the simple, pure, and wondrous origins of the magic of roleplaying. How can you say thank you for that?

My late father regularly used to say, "No one is getting any younger." I find myself thinking of that more and more lately, not just as I grow older but as so many of the people I knew and looked up to as a younger person pass beyond the veil. Steve Perrin will be missed by those who knew and loved him, whether personally or through the games he created or inspired others to create. All things considered, that's not a bad legacy. 

Interview: Rick Meints (Part I)

Rick Meints is the president of the venerable and celebrated RPG publisher, Chaosium – as well as a roleplaying gamer of long standing. Recently, he very kindly agreed to be interviewed, answering some questions about his history in the hobby, the games he's enjoyed playing, and what Chaosium is up to these days. Presented below is the first half of this interview; the second half will appear tomorrow.

1. How did you first become involved in the hobby of roleplaying? 

I first played D&D back in late 1978 when I spent my allowance on the D&D Basic boxed set. It opened a whole new world of possibilities. I used graph paper from my math class to sketch out dungeons, and bought a few Ral Partha minis at my local hobby store to move my imagined characters around the map. My parents encouraged reading and told my sister and I that they would buy us any book we wanted. That made it easy to purchase the Players Handbook and Dungeon Masters Guide in 1979. As a kid that took care of my toys, I still have those books close to hand on a nearby gaming shelf in my home office. During summer vacations I played through the entire Giants and Drow (GDQ) series, happily power gaming all the way. The hook was set deep for what was to come when Tim Webster, our GM, showed us the RQ rulebook and Cults of Prax shortly thereafter...

2. What was your initial impression of RuneQuest and, more specifically, of its setting, Glorantha?

My gaming group started dabbling with RQ a few years after the game came out, mostly with some home-brewed scenarios. I devoured every word of Cults of Prax, especially the stories from "The Travels of Biturian Varosh" that were sprinkled throughout the book. I had previously played a cleric, but the religious side of the character was not fleshed out at all. To be honest I can't even remember which god the character was a cleric for. Playing a warrior who worshipped Orlanth and then a merchant who became a priest of Issaries was a very pleasant change. The depth of the game world of Glorantha intrigued me as well. What set the hook deeply was playing through almost all of the possible adventures in the sandbox campaign Griffin Mountain during the summer of 1981. Everything we encountered while working on Joh Mith's caravan was novel and exciting, be it Jack O'Bears, Citadels built by Giants, the occupying Lunar forces, seeking out the Windsword on Griffin Mountain, carving a Windbery tree branch to make a magic staff, or meeting the legendary Gonn Orta at his castle hidden in the mountains. I actually kept a bit of a game journal back then, which was a first for me. I wanted to write these stories down. We only took a break from RQ to try the next Chaosium game Tim brought home, which was Call of Cthulhu.

3. What did you think of Call of Cthulhu? Were you already familiar with Lovecraft at the time?

I had never read any of his books before playing Call of Cthulhu, and only knew a little about him because I saw a few of his books on Tim, our Keeper's bookshelves. I was keen to play, partially because I really like the 1920s era, and also because my character was able to use a Thompson submachine gun with a 50 round drum. Because it basically used the core rules also used for RuneQuest, it was easy to get playing right away, and we were soon battling various cultists. I enjoyed those game sessions, but we were playing it when there weren't that many supplements published for it yet, so I didn't play through many of the classics. We would have kept playing it but Tim went off to college and his brother Tom brought home a 2" boxed set called Stormbringer for us to try next.

4. Stormbringer is a favorite of mine. What did you think of it? Were you a fan of Moorcock's Elric stories?

I was excited to get a chance to play an RPG set in the Young Kingdoms. I had read several of the Elric novels (classic DAW paperbacks) about a year or so prior to Tom opening the Stormbringer box at our game table. I played a sailor from the Isle of Purple Towns who worshipped Strassha. After reading through the rules I noticed "Impressive Scar" on the Major Wounds table and getting one of those became my first in-game goal. That was followed by getting a Melnibonean Gold Wheel. The combat system was a bit more streamlined, which I liked. The magic system was also streamlined, but that appealed to me less. We all loved demon weapons and armor, and as an Agent I got pretty good at summoning water elementals. I don't remember the mission we were given by Strassha, but when we completed it we got the power to breathe water from him, which came in handy on several occasions during our further adventures. Alas, the closest we got to Tanelorn was Nadsokar. 

5. A common element to most of the games you've mentioned so far are the rules originating in RuneQuest and later known as Basic Role-Playing. What did you find so appealing about those rules when you first encountered them? What do you still find appealing about them?

I initially liked the rules for a number of reasons. It was great that Chaosium uses the same basic rules in all of their games so if you know how to play RQ, learning Call of Cthulhu or Stormbringer or Ringworld is mainly learning about the game world. I also like the way you don't have a restrictive character class that limits what armor, weapons, skills, or spells you can use. With BRP you get to pick and choose a lot more of those things for yourself. I am happy to not have to chase experience points to improve my level and abilities. Skill use and combat also feel far less abstract. It means crunching more numbers, but I like crunching numbers. Most people immediately understand what having a 75% climb skill means and how much protection they get from two point armor. I've played a lot of game systems since the 80s, and the BRP rules still largely work for how I want to play, unless I am playing in a single shot adventure at a con. For one shots I usually prefer a more rules light storytelling type of system.

6. Are there any other memories you have of your early days of roleplaying, whether they be playing a BRP game or something else?

I bought the Holmes boxed Basic D&D set, but didn't know of anyone who played the game. I mainly just read through all the material and rolled up a character, but didn't really play the game until one of my friends in Junior High said he was willing to GM. He had just bought the Players Handbook and the Giants series of modules and was looking forward to running them. Because I was the only player, I played several characters, each of a different class. It worked for Brian and I. We ended up playing through Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, Hall of the Fire Giant King, Descent into the Depths of the Earth, Shrine of the Kuo Toa, and Vault of the Drow over the next year or so. With Tim and Tom Webster, the four of us took turns GMing games of Boot Hill, Top Secret, Gamma World, and Traveller. Our interest in each of those didn't last very long though. Gun fights turned out to be too deadly in Boot Hill, Brian and Tim thought the post-nuclear Gamma World was too preposterous (especially when I played a Hoop), the Imperium seemed boring in Traveller even though we liked rolling up veterans, and in Top Secret I had a hard time GM'ing when the three of them decided to become terrorists instead of playing good guys. We ate a fair bit of pizza and had a lot of laughs at the table along the way though. On Boy Scout trips Tom and I would often play the little black box games by Steve Jackson. Arena duels were popular in Car Wars because lots of us could play. We took long bus trips with the troop and would often play fairly late into the night because we could sleep on the bus during the day. We also played Tunnels & Trolls, but all I remember is getting to cast the "Take that you fiend" spell. Up until I went to college we were always playing something throughout the summer, plus weekends year round.

"Is It Fun?"

Chaosium's Basic Role-Playing is a remarkable little pamphlet. Only sixteen pages in length in the version I first encountered it, BRP isn't just a tightly-written little ruleset; it's also a collection of thoughtful musings about roleplaying as an activity and entertainment. Take, for example, this three paragraph section entitled "Is It Fun? – Cooperation and Competition," which starts off with some sentiments with which I heartily agree.

Gaming is social. If you want to use your imagination alone, you could read a book. But be warned: when a number of people get together cooperatively, they can form a communal fantasy far more interesting and imaginative than could any one person, and the joint effort results in an extremely satisfying experience for all involved.

This is very well said. The emphasis on gaming as a social activity is important, because a big part of why roleplaying works – or doesn't – in any given group comes down to its members' sociability. Just as important is the notion of "communal fantasy." A successful campaign is the result of no single person involved in it, not even the referee, but rather is the fruit of cooperation between everyone involved. As we'll see, though, writers Greg Stafford and Lynn Willis aren't advocating free-form anarchy. 

Players must work together. For instance, a party of adventurers will not survive against a batch of monsters of they are not willing to aid each other, heal each other, and guard each other. This is not to say that you cannot play a back-stabbing thief, only to suggest that if everyone plays that way, there will be no incentive to play together – there must be honor even among thieves, so far as gaming goes. And if all your characters are cut-throats, who will be interested in playing with you?

The matter of evil, untrustworthy, or disreputable characters is a difficult one and I don't know that there's a one-size-fits-all way to deal with it. In my House of Worms campaign, for example, all the characters are generally pulling in the same direction, united as they are by bonds of kindship. Instances of back-stabbing (broadly defined) are largely non-existent and that works for this particularly campaign. In other games I've refereed, on the other hand, there have been more examples of dubious behavior player characters and they made sense in context. 

There are also needs to be cooperation between players and the referee. Though the referee does mastermind the world and does set up and run the details, it's also true that the game remains a game for him as well, and that he likes to have fun playing too.

This is a topic on which I've written before: the referee as player. It makes me very happy to see the writers of Basic Role-Playing also saw it as a worthy topic. 

The player-characters should pit themselves against the world, not the referee. The referee should not be afraid to ask others for their opinions on game matters, and the players should not be afraid of debating rules questions or play opportunities with the referee.

This completely comports with my own experiences (and philosophy) as a referee.

Referee rulings should be final, though, and players must be willing to take losses if the referee is adamant in his thinking. Work out questions by discussion, not fiat, and players and referee should be willing to change their minds if necessary, and occasionally change the game somewhat to adjust to the situation at hand. 

To me, this is common sense. I particularly appreciate the fact that Stafford and Willis do not shy away from stating that "referee rulings should be final." In this, they're not very far off from Gary Gygax's comments in the Dungeon Masters Guide on related matters. 

Simple communication will build an enjoyable and understandable world to play in. The rewards of cooperation are great; hostility and resentment are fatal to play. Remember, the object of all this is to have fun.

This whole section in the BRP pamphlet is very important, but its final sentences quoted above are especially so. Sometimes, when I hear people talk about their experiences playing RPGs, I don't get the sense that they're having much fun doing so and I wonder why that is. If roleplaying games ceased to be fun for me, if all I ever did was complain about the games I'm playing or the people with whom I'm gaming, I would not hesitate to stop playing. 

In any case, I continue to be quite impressed by the original Basic Role-Playing pamphlet. Despite its short length, it contains a great deal of wisdom and is well worth reading if you've never done so. With luck, Chaosium might make it available once again.

What's the Point of Ability Scores? (A Brief Interlude)

Before returning to my examination of ability scores in D&D and AD&D, I thought it would be instructive to take a look briefly at how the second edition of Chaosium's RuneQuest handles abilities (or "characteristics," as it terms them). Bear in mind that this edition was released in 1979, five years after the release of OD&D, but roughly contemporaneously with the completion of Advanced Dungeon & Dragons. 

Unlike D&D, RQ has seven characteristics: Strength, Constitution, Size, Intelligence, Power, and Dexterity, and Charisma, whose scores are determined by the player rolling 3d6 in order. Each of the characteristics provides bonuses or penalties to tasks or skills in which a character engages. For example, defense rolls are influenced by a character's scores in Size, Intelligence, Power, and Dexterity. 

If you take a look at the chart above, you'll notice something very interesting. Take a look at the line for the Size characteristic. What you'll see is that having a low score is actually a benefit to defense, while having a high rating is a drawback. Here's another, this one dealing with stealth.

In this chart, there are two characteristic where having a low score is advantageous, Size and Power. Forgive me for finding these two charts remarkable, but this is a topic that's very dear to me. I've long felt that there ought to be benefits as well as drawbacks for scores at both ends of the curve. The fact that RuneQuest – at least in its second edition – takes this into account is commendable and an unusual counterpoint to the way Dungeons & Dragons (and other RPGs) handles ability scores.

BRP News

The Old School Renaissance owes a huge debt to the release of the d20 System Reference Document and the Open Game License by Wizards of the Coast in 2000. With them, many of our favorite retro-clones, like Labyrinth Lord and Old School Essentials, among many others, would have been impossible (or at least much more difficult) to produce legally, not to mention many other RPGs, adventures, and support materials derivative of the contents and rules of Dungeons & Dragons.

Over the last two decades, other publishers has followed in the footsteps of Wizards of the Coast, making their game rules and content open and available for use by other publishers. The latest to do so is Chaosium, whose celebrated Basic Roleplaying system, originally created for RuneQuest but eventually used in nearly every RPG published by the company, is now offering its own System Reference Document and royalty-free license for use by third parties. You can find all the details at the BRP website.

As long-time admirer of Basic Roleplaying and many of the games Chaosium has produced using a version of BRP, I think this is exciting news. Chaosium already has several community content programs in place that, by all accounts, have produced some excellent materials. With the SRD and license, it's quite possible we'll start seeing whole new BRP games being published, which is remarkable. We've already seen renaissances of interest in D&D and Traveller thanks to similar arrangements; here's hoping the same happens for Basic Roleplaying.

Retrospective: Basic Role-Playing

When asked to name an old school roleplaying game, most gamers would, I suspect, immediately say, "Dungeons & Dragons," and not without good reason. Being the first and still most successful RPG ever published inevitably brings with it enviable name recognition, even outside the hobby. Readers of this blog, however, could almost certainly name many other early games equally important to the history of the hobby, both in terms of their innovations and influence. A supremely good example of such games is Chaosium's Basic Role-Playing, written by Greg Stafford and Lynn Willis, based on the pioneering work of Steve Perrin, Ray Turney, Steve Henderson, and Warren James, each of whom had contributed to the design of 1978's RuneQuest. 

First published in 1980, Basic Role-Playing is a 16-page distillation and development of the rules found in RQ but shorn of their connection to Glorantha or any other setting. As its subtitle makes clear, BRP was intended as "an introductory guide" to this new form of entertainment 

wherein the players construct characters who live out their lives in a specially made game game-world. The characters need not be anything like the people who play. Indeed, it is often more rewarding and enjoyable to create characters entirely unlike themselves. For instance, the most popular sorts are warriors and magicians – how many knights and wizards do you know in this world?

I like this passage a great deal both for what it says and how it says it. Basic Role-Playing is written in a very engaging style that is clear without being vapid, to the point that it includes a number of genuinely insightful philosophical digressions, such as this one on "life and death," which I reproduce in full, because of how delightful it is.

Danger is a common part of role-playing. There is satisfaction in non-dangerous occupations, and players are urged to have some non-combative characters if time allows. But the sharpest spice is the performance of characters in life-or-death situations. Dying is the one experience we cannot know more than once, and few of us are interested in hurrying-up our chance for the knowledge. Role-playing gives us surrogate danger without the risk.

Even so, you will experience real emotion when your characters gain victories, and undergo real agony when they die. Players and their characters have a very intimate relation, and the longer a player runs his character well, the more likely there will be a sense of loss when death comes and resurrection is not possible. This can be traumatic if you are too close to the characters at hand. For this reason, people are advised to never play themselves in a game. Always maintain a proper mental attitude towards the game, and remember that it is only imagination, no matter how real it seems during play. 

Possibility of loss makes success rewarding. Commit your characters to battle and play without restraint.

There's so much good stuff in these three short paragraphs that I could write an entire post discussing it (and perhaps I will), but I share it here to illustrate the balance, good sense, and even wisdom present in this short staple-bound booklet.

I first encountered Basic Role-Playing in 1981, when I bought the first edition of Call of Cthulhu. The boxed set included a copy of BRP, to which the game's rulebook frequently referred when it came to describing certain rules. Though this was unwieldy, to be sure, it did afford me the opportunity to spend more time with the text of Basic Role-Playing itself. The text presents an easy-to-understand and use percentile-based system for handling combat and skill use, along with probably my favorite experience rules for any RPG. The skill list is small and focused primarily on physical actions and combat is relatively fast and potentially deadly. It's a terrifically compact but sharp set of rules – little wonder then that it's been used in and imitated by so many roleplaying games over the last forty years.

I have only good things to say about BRP; it's a true classic of the hobby, right up there with OD&D, Tunnels & Trolls, Empire of the Petal Throne, and Traveller, as examples of brilliant early rules sets. Correction: I can think of one criticism and that's that the original 16-page version of the game is no longer available. I know that Chaosium has, in the years since, produced a much lengthier version of the game and I'm sure it's fine, but, for me, those additional pages are just gilding the lily. They can't hold a candle to the 1980 version I read all those years ago. It's still one of the best things Chaosium has ever released – a sterling example of old school rules economy to which few can compare.

REVIEW: RuneQuest II

Let me begin this review by stating, for the record, how much I dislike the name "RuneQuest II" being applied to a rulebook other than the second edition of Chaosium's version of the game. It's a small point, to be sure, but I mention it to be honest about my frame of mind as I undertook the reading of Mongoose Publishing's updated version of this classic game, written by Lawrence Whitaker and Pete Nash. There was something subtly annoying about this book with the Rune of Luck on its cover, but I just couldn't place my finger on it. Whatever it was, it egged me on in looking for anything that could I could seize upon to dislike in this 200-page hardcover rulebook. Sure enough, I did find a few things I disliked, but I also found even more that I liked, which is why my initial annoyance eventually turned to pleasure.

So let's start at the beginning. Mongoose's RuneQuest II (hereafter MRQII) is presented as "a fully revised and updated edition of the classic game system originally released in 1978 and republished by Mongoose Publishing in 2006." The Roman numeral in the title is a reference to the 2006 Mongoose book, which, by all accounts, was a mess very much in need of this revision. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if it's also intended as a sly reminder of its Chaosium-published predecessor, which was probably the most successful version of RuneQuest ever published (particularly in the UK, where, during the 1980s, it rivaled and may have even surpassed D&D in popularity).

Like OpenQuest, MRQII is intended as a generic iteration of the RuneQuest rules, although, because Mongoose Publishing has the license to produce materials set in Glorantha (albeit in the Second Age), there are occasional references to and examples derived from it. In addition, the rulebook embeds the concept of runes into its presentation of magic, which, while not necessarily tying the game to a specific setting or cosmology, does at least imply one. I don't think it'd be difficult to ignore this or to re-imagine it, but it's worth noting that, much like D&D (and unlike OpenQuest), MRQII brings with it a number of assumptions about the world its rules describe.

MRQII lays claim to the heritage of the original RuneQuest in other ways as well, including those "fiddly" bits that I have kept me from fully embracing the original rules. For example, characters (as well as creatures) have hit points divided by hit location. Likewise, combat contains a great deal of detail, which probably makes it far more satisfying for players who enjoy tactical challenges but more off-putting to people like me who prefer their combat rules quick and abstract. On the other hand, MRQII's character creation is quite flavorful, giving important roles to a character's culture and previous profession to determine starting skill values. There are also some terrific random tables for determining details of the character's family, allies, enemies, contacts, rivals, and other background information.

Skills are nicely delineated, being neither as narrow and limited as those in the original RuneQuest nor as extensive as in some games. I personally think the list could have been pared down a bit more, but I imagine that we got as many skills as we did in order to ensure the rules were useful to a wide variety of fantasy settings. MRQII's advancement system is similar to that presented in OpenQuest, but with additional options for in-game training, which I prefer. As noted, combat is fairly complex, especially with the introduction of combat maneuvers -- opportunistic actions characters can take if they achieve a particularly noteworthy success on an attack or defense skill roll. With time and experience, I am sure combat can be run smoothly and enjoyably, but, as someone used to OD&D's more abstract approach, I found MRQII's combat rules somewhat intimidating.

Magic in the game is divided into Common Magic, Divine Magic, Spirit Magic, and Sorcery, all of which have antecedents in earlier versions of RuneQuest. The rules governing magic are quite straightforward and nicely differentiate the various types from one another, which is a strong point in their favor. There are also guidelines for the creation of cults, which is, to my mind, one of the key elements of what made old school RuneQuest such a unique game. I am glad to see they were included in MRQII. I was a little less enthusiastic about the introduction of feat-like powers called "heroic abilities." However, heroic abilities are explicitly presented as rewards for advancement within a cult and from undertaking HeroQuests, the latter of which was never adequately integrated into the Chaosium RQ rules, despite much talk of it. So, while I can't deny a certain degree of personal uncomfortability with abilities like these, there's a strong case to be made that their presence is fulfilling a decades-long promise Chaosium never made good on and thus needed to be included.

MRQII has a very weak bestiary, consisting of less than two dozen monsters, quite a few of which are intelligent species. There are no rules for magic items or indeed treasure of any kind beyond ordinary equipment. Neither are there any sample adventures or campaign outlines, though there are some potentially useful random encounter tables at the back of the book. For this reason, MRQII feels less complete than OpenQuest does.

I imagine that this is by design, since Mongoose uses MRQII as the "core rulebook" for several different RPGs, each of which no doubt includes its own bestiary, treasures, and other game/setting-specific rules additions/modifications. That's probably fine from a publishing point of view, but it does, I think, limit the utility of MRQII as a single-volume generic rulebook for fantasy roleplaying. On the other hand, if you're intending to purchase and use the supplementary material that Mongoose is putting out, the RuneQuest II rulebook is an excellent compendium. Its revision of the classic RQ rules is clearly and logically presented and is true to its origins, making it a worthy official successor to Steve Perrin and Ray Turney's groundbreaking 1970s game design.

Presentation: 8 out of 10
Creativity: 7 out of 10
Utility: 6 out of 10

Buy This If: You're looking for a clear and well presented, if slightly complex, rules system for skill-based fantasy roleplaying.
Don't Buy This If: You've already got a version of BRP with which you're satisfied or don't care for even a moderate level of rules complexity in your fantasy gaming.

REVIEW: OpenQuest

In the gaming circles in which I spent my formative years in the hobby, Dungeons & Dragons and RuneQuest were like Coke and Pepsi or the White Sox and the Cubs -- you were for one or the other. As a partisan of D&D, I thus had very little direct experience with RQ, believing it to be a weird, "hippy" game and thus unworthy of my attention. Despite that -- or perhaps because of it -- I was nevertheless quite fascinated by RuneQuest. I read articles about the game in the pages of White Dwarf (and Dragon, too, so I reasoned it that it couldn't be that bad, could it?). I saw descriptions of its products in the Chaosium catalogs I got in my copies of Call of Cthulhu and Stormbringer (and any company that made those games couldn't make a truly bad game, could they?). And I even played the occasional pick-up games at local games days, hoping to get a better sense of what was so bad -- or good -- about RuneQuest.

Over the years, particularly as my love affair with D&D waned during the 2e era, I looked again at RQ with fresh eyes and found a genuine appreciation for both its rules and its setting. I even picked many of the RuneQuest products Avalon Hill produced and attempted to start a campaign using them, but to no avail. I continued to acquire the occasional Avalon Hill offering during the early 90s, but I never managed to use any of them in actual play. Consequently, I consider RQ "the one that got away" -- a game I'd have liked to have played but, owing to circumstances and my own earlier stupidity, I never managed to do so. That situation hasn't much changed in the years since, but I have made a greater effort to understand RuneQuest on its own terms by immersing myself in its Chaosium era products. I've discovered, not entirely unsurprisingly, that I actually prefer the style and presentation of that era of RQ, which seems a lot more straightforward and accessible than the Avalon Hill stuff I bought almost two decades ago.

But, as highly as I regard the second edition of Chaosium's RuneQuest, I still doesn't quite click with me, both for reasons I can explain and for reasons I cannot. Consequently, I've been on the lookout for an alternative -- a game that would allow me to play in old school Glorantha but without all the rules bits I don't like. So, when I heard about D101 Games's OpenQuest, I was intrigued. Written by Newt Newport (with Graham Spearing, Tim Bancroft, Simon Bray, and Paul Mitchener), it's available for sale either as a 188-page softcover book for £15 (approximately $23 US) or a PDF of the same length for £6 (about $9 US). You can also get a free text-only version of the game from the D101 Games website. The softcover is an A4-sized book, which, after so many years of associating RuneQuest with White Dwarf, seems strangely right to me. It has a wonderfully evocative cover illustration by Jon Hodgson and is illustrated throughout by Simon Bray. The book uses a simple but straightforward two-column layout and its text is clearly written with no immediately noticeable editorial errors. All in all, it's a nicely put together book.

OpenQuest (hereafter OQ) uses an OGL iteration of Basic Roleplaying "based on the Mongoose RuneQuest SRD (MRQ SRD), with ideas from previous editions of Chaosium’s RuneQuest and Stormbringer 5th, mixed in with some common sense house rulings from the author’s twenty years of experience with the D100 system," according to the D101 Games website. What's immediately clear is that Newport and his co-authors consider simplicity a virtue. OQ is much simpler than either RuneQuest 2e or 3e, with far fewer "fiddly" bits, when it comes to both character generation and common actions, such as combat and magic use. The result is a game that feels (to me anyway) like a streamlined and updated version of Stormbringer with magic systems that call to mind those of RuneQuest shorn of their Gloranthan specificity.

I say this not as a criticism of OQ, because I actually believe this to be one of OQ's triumphs. Much as I love RuneQuest and Stormbringer, both games are closely tied to their settings in my mind, making it difficult for me to imagine using them as "generic" rulesets. OQ, on the other hand, is a genuinely generic ruleset, meaning that I'd have fewer mental reservations about using it for a game set neither in Glorantha nor the Young Kingdoms. Likewise, the fact that OQ's combat system retains the deadliness of its predecessors without their complexity (or RQ's in any case) means that I'd seriously consider such a possibility. Of course, simplification is a double edged sword. There are times when certain more complex systems that I liked, such as RQ's advancement system, are discarded and replaced by one for which I don't particularly care. It's not a deal-breaker by any means and the beauty of Basic Roleplaying-derived systems, like D&D-derived ones, is the ease with which rules from one can be ported into another. Still, it's worth noting that OQ is sometimes simpler than I would have preferred.

Far more noteworthy, though, is the admirable completeness of this book. Its 188 pages covers nearly everything you'll ever need to play. In addition to the expected character generation, combat, action, and magic rules, there's also a large bestiary, a sample setting, and two adventures suitable for use with beginning characters. About the only significant area where I felt OQ was lacking was in terms of magic items and artifacts, but then I felt the same way about RuneQuest, so take that as you will. It's rare to find a game that can truly be called "complete" without qualification and yet is so lean in its presentation. There's almost nothing in this book that I'd consider unworthy to have been included; it all serves to present and demonstrate its rules and the type of fantasy gaming they're intended to support. It's a superb package, all the more remarkable when one considers how rarely such a feat is achieved nowadays.

In the end, most of my criticisms of OpenQuest are nitpicks -- little rules choices here or there that I felt weakened or eliminated some element of earlier games that I particularly enjoyed. But I know well that those aspects of earlier games that I like are not held in the same regard by all, so it's inevitable that there'd be these areas of polite disagreement. As I said, I don't like the rather banal advancement rules in OpenQuest nor am I all that keen on the introduction of meta-game-y "hero points," but both are easily changed. Meanwhile, I think the combat system offers a good balance between the grittiness I associate with BRP-style battles and the mechanical complexity often needed to support it. All and all, Newt Newport and his compatriots have done a fine job of presenting a clean, complete, and easy to use ruleset that I'd seriously consider using for fantasy roleplaying in the future. That's about as high praise as I can give any game.

Presentation: 7 out of 10
Creativity: 7 out of 10
Utility: 8 out of 10

Buy This If: You're looking for a straightforward, complete, and easy-to-use percentile-based fantasy roleplaying game.
Don't Buy This If: You've got no need for another fantasy RPG or prefer your BRP-derived games to err on the side of complexity.