Tag Archives: basic fantasy rpg

Thank You to the OSR – 10 Years Later

22 Friday Sep 2023

Posted by in OSR

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The first post to my blog was on Sept. 22, 2013. That was four years after I had gotten back into the same old-school gaming I had enjoyed as a kid, thanks to one of a handful of the first retro-clones Swords & Wizardry White Box (link is to a PDF of the first printing, no longer available in print).

That first post had an image of my gaming collection – just one bookshelf! Now that has increased to four shelves. Of course this is just what I wanted to collect in print over the years – like many in this hobby, I have a large digital collection of games as well. But I still prefer print copies of the classic games.

books

Much has changed with the OSR in the past 10 years, and much is the same. Mainly I think there is more fragmentation as people joined groups on various social media platforms when some of the original forums, along with G+ went away. But I’m happy that there seems to be a resurgence in OSR blogs, and forums are definitely not dead, with some of the largest from 10 years ago (or longer) still online. In my opinion the blogs and forums are where the old-school gaming community should congregate, discuss and share ideas, as they are indexed by search engines and the Internet Archive. Facebook, MeWe, Discord and the like are not public in that sense, and anything posted to those platforms is lost when they go away. I created my own public forum in 2016 in reaction to the Swords & Wizardry forums being taken offline, and in 2017 I created a static snapshot of the Goblinoid Games forums, just before they too were taken offline.

2013 was also the year our current gaming group was formed, and it’s still going strong today. It’s not a overstatement to say that these games, gaming friends and the OSR in general have been a major part of my life for the past decade. So thanks again to the OSR and the many people that make it fun, and here’s hoping to another 10 years!

BFRPG Creative Commons-Licensed Editions Now in Print

21 Wednesday Jun 2023

Posted by in OSR

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , ,

Just a quick post to say that the CC-licensed Basic Fantasy RPG core rules (4th edition) and a few of the adventure modules are now in print, at cost. Apart from the license change away from the OGL, it looks like minor errata and new art comprise the bulk of the changes – the BFRPG forums have the details (but see below for Chris Gonnerman’s comment and his Youtube video on the more extensive core rules changes). As usual, all of the BFRPG PDFs and source documents are free to download.

Simplified Encumbrance for OD&D and Clones

17 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by in DM Resources, Player Resources

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

In the 1974 D&D rules, encumbrance was tracked in coins. The PC’s miscellaneous equipment was assumed to always weigh 80 coins. To that, one added armor and weapon weights (in coin equivalents), and the actual number of coins carried to come up with a total, which could be mapped to a movement rate. Ostensibly 10 coins weighed one pound, but you did not need to know this fact to calculate encumbrance. In that system, 3000 coins is the maximum a PC can carry.

This is an elegant system, because it did not force the player to track individual equipment weights. I think one of the biggest mistakes later systems and various old school D&D clones made was discarding this system and providing a weight in pounds (or kilograms, stone etc.) for every single bit of equipment. I’ve noted before that tracking encumbrance this way is a fun-sucking exercise, and I have never used it when I run games. Using it as written slows down character creation to a crawl.

bx-encumbrance

The system I’ve settled on is an even simpler one, and in the finest old-school tradition is a mix of rules from OD&D, Pits & Perils, and Holmes Basic. A PC can carry a reasonable amount of gear, armor, and weapons, plus 1200 coins – no more. In the original game, strength does not directly affect attack or damage rolls, or give any direct bonuses or penalties at all. What I do is give PCs with a STR of 15 or more an added 600 coin carrying capacity (so 1800 coins). With a STR of six or less, they can carry only 600 coins. 20 coins of any type weigh one pound, but again this fact is not needed to calculate encumbrance. I think this directs the player attention away from miscellaneous equipment weights back to coins, where it should be. After all, when 1GP = 1XP, treasure becomes more important than defeating monsters, and is the end goal of any dungeon or overland expedition – to gain XP and advance levels. But what is “reasonable”? Here we can take a tip from Holmes and have players note on their character sheets where their equipment lives. To do this quickly the character sheet can be sectioned by container – so one heading would be “backpack”, another would be “large sack”, and then maybe “belt”. Then the players just list the items in each section.

How does this tie in with movement? In line with the original rules, there are three movement rates, corresponding with armor worn.

None/Leather/Magic or Elven chain: 12″
Chain/Magic plate: 9″
Plate: 6″

You can see that magic armor in this system is treated as the next higher category to reflect its lower encumbrance.

A character can carry up to their maximum allotted coin weight with no change – but once they hit 1200 coins, they drop 3″ to the next lower rate. So, for example, if Drizzle the M-U has a STR of 9 and carries 1,200 coins, his move rate is 9″ and he can carry no more. To make things even easier, a large sack holds (you guessed it) 1200 coins.

Apart from keeping track of coins, which players do anyway, and being aware of armor worn, there is nothing more to do as far as figuring out movement rate. You might also like to figure coin-equivalent weights for other common items of treasure, like gems or jewelry. But it’s not strictly necessary unless your players stumble onto a dragon’s hoard.

A Quick Look at The Role Playing Game Primer

17 Saturday Feb 2018

Posted by in Review

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , , , ,

The Role-Playing Game Primer and Old School Playbook was written by Chris Gonnerman, the creator of Basic Fantasy RPG (BFRPG). It’s a concise introduction to classic tabletop role-playing, of course using the BFRPG rules as a base.

This book fills a much-needed gap in the OSR, namely, how do you deal with someone who has no experience playing or running tabletop RPGs? Many rule books contain the usual sections on funny-looking dice, or what an ability score is, while some provide a sample adventure and give tips on game mastering. In my experience they all fall short, assuming far too much from a total novice.

rpg-primer-cover

The book starts with a quite detailed but conversational example of character creation and play, then moves into playing advice, then onto running and creating adventures (including stocking a sample dungeon) and finally game master (GM) advice. The final chapter details how to convert common stats (armor class, movement, etc) between BFRPG and the other major retro-clones – Swords & Wizardry, OSRIC, and Labyrinth Lord. It’s about 60 pages long and is chock full of details that a more experienced player or GM might assume and leave out. Chris takes nothing for granted. The sample dungeon key with Chris’ advice and commentary with each room description will be hugely useful for the newcomer.  As an experienced GM, I enjoy reading about how other GMs create things – I’m really searching for ideas for my own games. Indeed I found it interesting to see how Chris’ creative process works. Here is an example of what I’m talking about:

Turning the page, I roll on the “Any” column of the first table. My roll is 97, which indicates a Miscellaneous Magic item. Rolling one more time on the table on page 134, I get a 29. The magic item indicated is a Brazier Commanding Fire Elementals.

Okay, wow. That’s actually a very powerful magic item, probably far too powerful for first level characters. If I was dealing with a group of experienced players, I might just go ahead and use that item, just to see what they do. But this is an adventure for beginners… no, I’m not doing that. I roll again, getting 16 this time.

In short, this is a great resource for the neophyte player or GM, and will even hold the interest of more experienced players or GMs. This book and a print copy of the BFRPG core rules would make a great present for your kids once they start to show interest in RPGs. The PDF (also at DTRPG)and print copies can be found on Lulu.com.

~

Thoughts on the Relative Success of Basic Fantasy RPG, Labyrinth Lord, and Swords & Wizardry

29 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by in OSR

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

bfrpg-cover

Wayne Rossi posits here about the reasons for the popularity of Basic Fantasy RPG (BFRPG). When you read the roll20 report he links to, you see that BFRPG beats out Swords & Wizardry and Labyrinth Lord by a wide margin. Now, I’m not sure of the exact reasons for BFRPG’s success on roll20 compared to the other games, but I suspect it has to do with primarily three things:

  1. The open-source nature of the BFRPG rules – everything is free (as in cost and as in speech), including the source documents. Wayne mentions this and I think it is spot-on.
  2. The active involvement of the game creator, and, failing that, the involvement of the community members.
  3. Having a central source for releases, supplements, adventures and community discussion.

Point 2, above, is tied inexorably to point 1. Chris Gonnerman (the creator and maintainer of BFRPG) is technically savvy and clearly familiar with the open source software development model, and he has used it to great success. But, if he were to disappear one day, or maybe even just cut back his involvement, everything is there for the community to take over. This is not the case with most other RPGs, including Labyrinth Lord and Swords & Wizardry. In my opinion, both games have suffered recently due to the lack of creator involvement in their respective gaming communities, and it is difficult or impossible for community members to step up in their absence.

snw-wb-3rd-print-cover

Point 3, a central project and community hub, is always found in open source software projects, and it should be there for RPGs as well. I think it is key to a project’s success. It doesn’t currently exist in active form for Labyrinth Lord and Swords & Wizardry, which both suffer from the G+ walled garden, as well as lack of maintenance for the project sites and forums that do exist. Point 3 also helps when potential players are doing information gathering – what good is a dead forum that is listed in the first page of search results? What good is all that discussion on G+ if it is not indexed by Google’s public search? Note that I’m not disparaging the creators of Labyrinth Lord or Swords & Wizardry, merely making observations on the current state of affairs.  I am quite grateful to both Matt Finch and Daniel Proctor for the time they invested in their respective projects, and for the many hours of fun their games have given me (the free content here, as well as the S&W forum I run, are my small contributions back).

ll-cover-thumb

You can see that Amazon is not on my list. The low cost of the print releases  and having them available on Amazon may be a factor in BFRPG’s relative success, but I’m not sure it is as big as Wayne thinks. The electronic versions of the BFRPG rules, adventures and supplements are all free to download and distribute. My guess is that many people use PDFs on tablets now when playing, particularly on roll20 (I’m speaking from my own roll20 experience here, and others I know who play there). And the free PDFs of the rules and many free adventures are available for Labyrinth Lord and Swords and Wizardry also. So that part of this seems to be equal as far as the three games are concerned.

~

Basic Fantasy RPG 3rd Edition and the Basic Fantasy Field Guide in Print

28 Friday Nov 2014

Posted by in OSR

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

After lots of hard work and community effort, the excellent Basic Fantasy RPG just got a little better! The 3rd Edition of the BFRPG core rules, as well as a new tome of monsters have hit Amazon/CreateSpace/Lulu (and eventually RPGNow). Although BFRPG is free to download, so you can take a look first. I did a quick overview of BFRPG a while ago.

BFRPG New Print Releases

A Quick Look at Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game

31 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by in Review

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, or BFRPG for short, is one of the oldest retro-clones around (the core rules are copyright 2006). It doesn’t get as much attention as some of the other big-name clones, but I think this is due to it being a non-commercial effort, and is certainly not due to any failings as a game.  The rules and all supplements and many adventures are open source and available free of charge in PDF and open document format on the BFRPG downloads page. At-cost print copies of the rules and some selected adventures are available from Amazon or Lulu (edit to add, BFRPG is now available through RPGNow). They are continually improved and released by Chris Gonnerman, the creator, and the greater BFRPG community, with pains taken to preserve backwards compatibility. This generally means errata but no major changes to rules or organization. The effort shows – the rules are clean and easy to understand, with little ambiguity, yet the complete core rules weigh in at only about 150 pages.

BFRPG

From the introduction to the core rules:

The Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game is a rules-light game system based on the d20 SRD v3.5, but heavily rewritten with inspiration from early role-playing game systems. It is intended for those who are fans of “old- school” game mechanics.

I’d say it approximates Basic (B/X) D&D most closely. There are some differences as compared to B/X – here are the major ones:

  • Ascending armor class is used.
  • Race-as-class is gone, and multi-class PCs (called combination classes) are handled simply by requiring the combined XP of both classes for level gains, and allowing the PC to choose the better of either classes’ attack bonuses and saving throws.
  • There are no non-human level limits, there is instead a flat 10% XP bonus that is only available to humans (this is a unique difference from old school systems that don’t use race-as-class, like OD&D and AD&D).
  • Bonuses or penalties for ability scores are standardized into one table.
  • Gold is not directly transferable to XP, although there is an optional rule suggesting that the players spend gold to earn XP.
  • Initiative is individual, not group, and modified by a PCs DEX bonus/penalty.
  • There are comprehensive subdual and wrestling rules.
  • There is no standard alignment system (although one is available as a supplement).

I think almost all of these are improvements, particularly getting rid of both level limits and race-as-class, although opinions will of course vary, and most of these are easily house-ruled, as in any old-school system. The big four classes (Fighter, Magic-User, Cleric, Thief) and standard races (Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling) are covered in the core rules, while many more are available from the supplements section of the downloads page, along with character sheets, GM aids, and additional rules. If you wanted a more AD&D 1e-style game, for example, the Assassin, Ranger, Paladin, Druid and Illusionist are available as supplements, along with the races Half-Elf, Gnome and Half-Orc. There are also more uncommon classes like Pyromancers, Bards, Barbarians and lots of others. One could spend days going through all of the freely available material.

Dungeon

The artwork has a great, old-school feel to it, and the fonts are a very close match to the ones in the Moldvay Basic rules. If you are a new gamer or need to introduce neophytes to tabletop role playing, the rules are simple and well presented, there are a few introductory adventures available, and there is a nine page beginner’s essentials supplement that can be printed or referenced from a tablet. It will also appeal to experienced gamers and DMs, given the large community around BFRPG and the huge amount of supplementary material one could easily run any style of campaign they liked. I’m looking forward to running a BFRPG game myself.