Overview - Basic Roleplaying (Chaosium) 

It's followed a similar trajectory (in my view) to Das Schwarze Auge in Germany - alternatives to D&D that became popular in their own language of origin. I didn't know that about Free League's Dragonbane. Thank-you for that. Nice to see DoD living on in some form!

...oh THAT'S what Dragonbane is?? I've heard a lot of people talking about it as a D&D competitor specifically and it being a BRP game got totally lost in the sauce. A BRP game trying to satisfy the 5e crowd sounds awesome actually, now I need to pick it up :D

I was good to see DoD mentioned also, however his history did overlook the BRP rules variants produced by Oriflam in France and Stratelibri in Italy from the mid-1980s to early 90s. Oriflam published French translations of Stormbringer, Hawkmoon, and various supplements including some of their own making (some of which were translated into English, reorganized and expanded, and published by Chaosium as Perils of the Young Kingdoms, Sea Kings of the Purple Towns, and Rogue Mistress); they also produced a number of supplements for Hawkmoon, including a wonderful 2nd Edition of the game (sadly none of which were ever translated to English). Stratelibri published a basic rulebook similar to 2nd Edition BRP and several supplements including ones for Dinosaurs, Ancient Egypt, Wild West, and even a licensed book for the Aliens franchise.

Thank-you - I'm glad you found it useful!

BRP is a fantastic system. I've never not been able to do what I want with it, within a "medium crunchy" (love that term!) mode - everything from Emma Peel and John Steed fighting off diabolical masterminds, to deepest darkest medieval England, and all sorts in between. I do have to say it's not my favourite system for sci-fi or superhero games, but pretty much everything else.

I'm in the throes of updating my own campaign to latest BRP - hence the impatience for a print copy myself!

Is the house to live in, or for game storage? (question my wife asks on occasion...!)

@@WillyMuffinUK sometimes I wonder myself

That low on the list?! Mind you, with Book of the Kindred currently on the loo reading list, I'm very tempted to put a VTM campaign together.

@@WillyMuffinUK it's not that's is "low" out of callousness lmao it's more low because I get idea crazy when I come across a new RPGs that I have to reel myself back. I haven't read book of the Kindred but I do have a few clanbooks; Tzimisces, Tremere, Gangrel, Malkavian, & Lasombra to be exact. vampire is probably the easiest to run because struggling with your own humanity and losing your past life is something we can all relate to in one way or another, that's how our ST runs it.

@@bigtastyben5119 It's a good game for self-examination, for sure. I get a bit "ooh shiny!" about games. I've learned over the years to reel myself in a bit, though, otherwise we'd never get anything done! 🤣

@@WillyMuffinUK so many RPGs so little time to play them :(

@@bigtastyben5119 Too true, my friend, too true.

Same. I enjoy different systems for different reasons.

I'll get to GURPS eventually. I will give GURPS one thing, though - it's sourcebooks are fantastic.

Chaosium knows how to put a book together

The whole OGL opened some horrible floodgates. It isn't a bad idea, though, and I'm hoping BRP under ORC will produce some good counter-flooding!

I kind of like the way they went with Cthulhu 7th, but totally agree that BRP should stick to the base. I am a little surprised it isn't in there as an option, but it would be redundant alongside Effort, Idea, etc.

Ouch, I feel your pain 😥

My first editions Runequest, Warhammer (the three booklet set in a box), and Worlds of Wonder, got donated to a local youth club...

@parazatico9030 Sorry to hear that, but at least those went somewhere that they (I hope) got some use, and introduced new players to those games?

That's a good way of looking at it!@@neuromancer9k

Thank-you - glad you found it useful 🙂

You're welcome 🙂

Ah, one day I might index these things.

Always pick the right tool for the job - every set of rules brings it's distinct feel to the table.

BRP has always been one of the pre-eminent "tinker with" games 🙂

I hope so!

Thank you for those kind words - and I hope it serves the purpose you've been looking for.

@@WillyMuffinUK well so far I'm loving it. Thanks for your deep insightful reviews, they have led me and my group to games we never knew were out there.

@@jackrussel9573 It's my pleasure 🙂

It's 1985 in my notes... if I read them out wrong, let this stand as a correction!

@@WillyMuffinUK Yeah, I started thinking that maybe it was just a verbal slip up. Or my hearing is going. Though it did still sound like 1995 when I replayed it. No worries it was really well done video. :)

@@Acmegamer Thank you 🙂

Thank-you!

Thank-you 🙂 I'd say BRP is more complete and complex, and Savage Worlds is more narrative and faster-paced. Although BRP can do heroic, depending on which options you select, it's default isn't "comic book heroic of D&D proportions" - on that scale, Savage Worlds is much closer to D&D. Flipping the above around, BRP is better at depicting "real world" (or facsimile...) than Savage Worlds. This is probably best exampled by Call of Cthulhu (a game built on BRP), where characters are "normal and fragile". Anyway, in short - I like both, for very different reasons.

Accent? What accent? 😉

That's the idea - RU-vid hypnotism!

I hear and obey@@WillyMuffinUK

@@parazatico9030 🤣

Yes, it's an abstraction. The best explanation of AC - and hit points - in D&D remains Gygax's within the 1st Edition AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide. D&D's system is heavily abstracted as it was initially used to describe the erosion of cohesion of units of soldiers (within Chainmail). It works for suoerheroic fantasy. The BRP system was originally constructed on an individual combatant basis, preferring a rough simulation of realism over abstraction. It works better for modern and historical settings, and heroic fantasy, because of this. It also makes combat more intrinsically narrative and deadly. Both systems have their merits, and are useful for different styles of play and setting. With their different definitions of "hit" and "miss" 😉

There are no significant hits until the last one. That is what makes BRP more fun to play.

@@danielward7747 Presumably you mean "there are no significant hits until the last one in D&D"? Because every hit in BRP has some significance!

@@WillyMuffinUK Not enough to worry about in D&D. But yes in BMP (RQ) EVERY attack is important. That is why I like it.

It depends what you're doing. Most BRP-based games are based on specific properties - Cthulhu, King Arthur, Glorantha, Michael Moorcock's works, etc. So if your idea doesn't infringe on any of those properties (which would mean you'd be infringing on the properties themselves...), I don't see any unique game concept you have infringing on anything Chaosium would have already done. If your game concept is based on another property, you'd need to check more than the requirements of the SRD. Also note that the BRP SRD falls under the OGL. In my opinion, you'd be far better off using the latest edition of BRP which falls under the ORC licence.

@@WillyMuffinUK I only found the SRD with OGL... If I am understanding you correctly, the new BRP-Book (Print/PDF) is completely under the ORC License and I can use its contents in any form for my own projects provided I display the "powered by..." Logo. Does it have magic in it? Or do I create my own - would probably do that - and hope it is not similar to any of the ones they have made and if I want to be on the safe side I would need to buy all of their games with a magic system to make sure it is not similar to any of theirs? In that case it may be easier to create a simple d100 engine without worrying about anything because any similarities would be purely coincidental?

@@JensD.Racherbaumer Yes, the new BRP includes magic. I don't work for Chaosium - specific legal questions you would need to contact them directly. There is no requirement to buy other games associated with BRP to produce your own BRP-based game. The mechanics in the core book are open under ORC.

A game I'm working on at the moment uses baseline BRP core, but with divergent rules in some areas - including magic. BRP is flexible enough to be able to take it in many different directions.

It's not an old-school D&D-based system ("old school" covers far more ground than Gygax!), so although you could bring in whatever systems you like from wherever, there will be some work to do. The fundamental differences are that BRP is d% rather than D20 (not too much of an issue - Pendragon is nominally a BRP-based game, and that uses D20 - it's fairly easy to go from %-base to 20-base), and it does not use classes or levels. So, if you wanted to introduce something like spells per level, you will need to do some work to define what exactly translates as "level". Differences between 2008 and 2023 include better organisation (in my opinion), further options brought in from Chaosium games not previously mined for BRP core, and, of course, the 2023 edition is covered by the ORC licence, where the 2008 edition is not. If you have the choice between the two, my advice would be to go for the 2023 edition. If you already have the 2008 edition, and aren't too bothered about perhaps publishing under ORC, you'll be fine with the Big Gold Book. Hope that explains things!

@@WillyMuffinUK it surely does :) thank you.

I quite like it. A bit busier than the BGB, but it has its own feel to it.

I agree. Another vanilla knocked-up-on- Photoshop effort.

The new cover is awesome, there is nothing wrong with the cover what so ever.

@@ravenshadowz2343 I guess I just prefer hand drawn and painted illustrations. Showing my age, probably.

@@parazatico9030, I'm an oil painting student, some of my fellow students who started out with all the classical drawing and painting tools, have went on to become digital artist, I'm assuming you have not seen the digital tools that are used to create digital art. For them to draw and paint with one of them they have to use software such as CorelDraw, Adobe Illustrator, etc. They have to learn all the shortcuts to make digital drawings and digital paintings easier to do. They must also learn to use a digital drawing tablet, with some sort of digital stylist, so the knowledge that they learn from classical drawing and painting will give them an edge on learning over other students that never took drawing or painting courses. There's a lot going on in that painting on the cover, it's not a simple task to create that, it's a complex pieces that has been created. Thank you for your reply!