Ysgarth Advanced Roleplaying

Sometimes, I like to head into the back history of roleplaying games and immerse myself in the choppy waters of the long forgotten, out of print, and no longer played at all anywhere in the world. Whoa there, rein in the hyperbole! Of course, I cannot prove that a particular game is now never played, and even the less mainstream will uncover an active community that still don’t play anything else (SPI’s Dragonquest). This time, I have uncovered Ysgarth, an early parallel developed RPG that continued through six printed editions, with a draft of the seventh available via obscure wayback magic.

Ysgarth is a game of the imagination. It allows you to become a character who
lives in another world – a world of fantasy and adventure.

…

Ysgarth’s rules are simple, flexible and consistent. They open up possibilities you’ve probably been looking for fruitlessly in other roleplaying
systems.

The game is a fascinating excursion into early simulationist, skill based, game design that continued to iterate for twenty years by David F. Nalle, a USA libertarian political activist, under his Ragnarok Enterprises. David is no longer with us, as he was taken by Covid.

Originating in 1979 in booklet format, and iterating from there, the 6th edition game is fine tuned complex, with 12 characteristics and more than 200 potential skills, all purchased with creation points. Skills are grouped into family groups, that contribute skill levels between them. This has been simplified in 6th, though the text references the four digit skill identification system from earlier editions. The point build is designed to give you complete min/max control and also cost to buy modifiers for different cultures and professions.

As a skill based game, your given plenty of spreadsheetable goodness. Skill Rating with any skills is equal to APT+ (SL x FAC). APT is your aptitude, being a characteristic forumla, SL is your skill level, and FAC is ‘Facility’, representing the complexity of the skill. Roll 1d100 and add your skill rating to get a high number, with 100+ being a full success, at least on the general skills table, it varies with other skill test types.

Combat is driven by Action Points, where different activities have varying costs. These are big numbers to keep track of, and nothing like a 3 AP system you might be familiar with. Here’s how your 60+ AP per round play into ordering in combat..

The AP a character enters combat with are equal to his total AP minus any cost for defense (Defense SR) and any encumbrance (Armor AP cost) or other overall subtractions. The remainder are their free AP to spend on aggressive actions that round. To determine who can strike first subtract the lower AP from the higher AP. The character with the higher AP can spend half the difference before his foe may begin to spend his AP and may spend the other half after his foe has run out. For group combat just have characters attack in descending order of number of AP.

Generally, in common combat AP should be kept track of fairly roughly, with the concentration on the number of blows each character has per round, rather than on breaking each round down AP by AP, which may become somewhat impractical.

Right then. I mean it is interesting to note the rule text, then immediately the recognition that the rule doesn’t really work very well. Aim for a location and use a different hit table depending on location, apply damage, take off armour and reduce hit points.

Ysgarth is also a world that gets some coverage in the 6th edition in the tight typeset text. Lots of cultures and a long form history of events and epochs to largely forget, but potentially weave in to an adventure backstory. Nothing very new here, but lots of detail.

The 7th edition is roll under and further rationalised. It might even be more obviously playable.

I tried to find some chat about Ysgarth out on the web. There is virtually nothing. Ulisses Spiele has an auto-dubbed Youtube look at Ysgarth from about a year ago, and that’s about it. So, I’m calling it, this is as discarded and dead a game that I have found so far. Who is playing Ysgarth today? reveal your self! It lives because a couple of us are reading it, and it gets a blog post.

I have a quick hack Lulu print copy of the game winging over to me as I type. Perhaps a table copy for a Grogmeet to come? It slightly worries me that I would even consider it while I have modern and accessible games readily available for play.

Tap me up for a mini campaign…