I’ve had an old times blast today. Inspired by Che Webster’s Roleplay Rescue Podcast, episode 911, I have gone back to old roots and started to build a Chaosium ‘Basic Roleplaying’ game that feels right to me. I suggest 1986, only because I was deep into RuneQuest 3rd Edition by then, rolling around with Stormbringer and other offerings. For a long time some form of BRP concocting was my default game system creation. Since then we have seen some great developments of the core game, in particular out into the Mongoose ‘Legend’ branch of the family.
Mythras (RQ6) is the most elegant and complete expression of the game today. Pete Nash and Lawrence Whitaker have fashioned a detailed and balanced version of the game that, for me, stands taller than any other. I am looking for a slightly simpler expression of the game and though I could have gone with Mythras: Imperative, I pulled off my relatively new OpenQuest (OQ) 3rd edition, that takes from the Legend SRD and delivers a more streamlined expression of the game. Truth is, I’m probably looking for something just a little different from OQ, but it can form a substantial base for my game.
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| Blending sourcebooks |
In additon to the blending ingredients above, I have access to the Mythras Classic Fantasy books, that take Mythras into a more D&D like experience. It is very strange for me to be heading back to BRP through the lense of recent D&D play. There are strengths to both, and a slight blend isn’t obvious from the purer documents in the illustration.
Legends of Anglere is a fun Fate implementation of heroic fantasy that I never remotely got to the table. It is choc full of stealable concepts, though how far I extract and re-purpose them I don’t know. I could equally take 13th Age, or indeed D&D 4e, and do the same. The blend will always be recognisably OQ though. I’m not in much danger of encumbering OQ with so much extra crud that I lose the simplicity of the base design.
Having said that, in bullet form, what do I have so far:
- OpenQuest as the base expression of the game
- A revised and slightly expanded skill list. I may retract back, as OQ’s simpler list is very much a strength. Having a few more skills will help with the niches below.
- No hit locations.
- Hit Points equal SIZ+CON. An oldie but a goodie that I have played with for 35 years. Slightly more survivable heroes
- Minor and Major Wounds as per BRP Gold Book
- Passions from Mythras
- Basic Magic is reskinned as ‘Talents’, extraordinary effects that heroes know how to do. This is simple chicanery to assuage my 40 year aversion to everyone having magic. I come back to this from D&D 4e, where everyone has Powers and it just works for me. This is unnecessary of course as Basic Magic can be described as all sorts of things, but taking out the name ‘Magic’ is an important step in my adoption of the game and keeps the fun of the effects. I shall probably rename quite a few of the Battle Magic spells and possibly rebalance some. Heal for example will be ‘Heroic Recovery’, only applies to battle wounds, and only for the individual character. Of course I may decide that an ‘inspiring word’ triggers a recovery in others. Surge on.
- Characters choose a Profession/Concept/Class
- Professions provide a template for initial generation of Skills and Talents (Concepts in OQ)
- Profession defines the Talents that your character can access
- A Critical Hit delivers double damage, though I will need to consider how this stacks with some Talents, which may lead to quadrupel damage.
Thanks to OQ and other sources I probably already have enough to bodge together a game that could actually see the light of day and play. A simple Google Doc character sheet would seem in order to make it happen. There are rough edges to what I have, but that’s fine, as my flavour leans on rock solid design over decades.
Why? Well, simply put, I have had a bit of a tiring week, and wanted to regress to an early state, where I designed games with a simple pallette. The range of colours has expanded now, but the experience was terrific and really took me back.
Maybe I’ll put on a game for old times’ sake?