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.
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.
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:
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.
The active involvement of the game creator, and, failing that, the involvement of the community members.
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.
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).
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.
Got some more loot in the mail today, the BFRPG Adventure Anthology 1 (this is only $3.75 at Amazon!) and the French translation of S&W Whitebox. I can read French passably, and this edition has all new art and a few extras, like a translation/adaptation of Matt Finch’s “A Quick Primer for Old-School Gaming” (Petit Guide du Jeu de Rôles à l’Ancienne), new encounter tables, and optional Dwarf and Halfling race-as-classes to go along with the Elf-as-class that is in the English version.
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.
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.
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.
My own OD&D campaign is based on just the 3LBBs, plus some house rules. These were informed by lots of different sources, including Holmes Basic, BLUEHOLME, Philotomy’s Musings, the Delving Deeper rules, the OD&D FAQ from Strategic Review magazine, and various bits and pieces mentioned in games, forums or blogs that stuck in my memory. Most recently, I’ve read through the Seven Voyages of Zylarthen (SVoZ) and pulled in spending gold for experience from that. Here are some highlights (last updated 2015-06-02):
I don’t like the stat/hit dice/bonus inflation that was ushered in with the Greyhawk supplement, so I keep d6 for all hit dice and d6 for all weapon/monster damage. I only add minimal bonuses/penalties for strength, and keep the other ability bonuses as-is.
Magical healing is downplayed, with binding wounds available to all PCs along with the Warden class’ healing poultices. I prefer not to use Clerics, but I keep the option available as some players really like them, and at least this way the Cleric can be something other than ‘the party healer’.
I really liked the idea of gold being used for experience, but only if it is spent (from SVoZ). This avoids the problem of “where do I keep my mountain of gold?” that is so often hand-waved away as PCs get to higher levels, and gives PCs a choice if they want to buy pricier items like scrolls or potions – gain experience, or spend it on cool stuff?
I love the scroll/spellbook rules from Holmes and BLUEHOLME, so I incorporated those as-is.
I don’t like race-as-class (as much as OD&D did not ostensibly have this, giving a Hobbit or Dwarf one ‘choice’ for a class, and the odd Elf multi-class are all pretty much the same thing). So I allow other class choices for non-humans, including Dwarven Clerics and my own Rogue and Warden (a Ranger minus the spells) classes for Hobbits and Elves, respectively. Elves can also choose to be just FM or M-Us if they wish.
I like the encumbrance rules from Men & Magic, particularly that ‘Miscellaneous Equipment’ is a set weight. No need to count every torch and iron spike. I just don’t like that the max encumbrance is 300lbs worth of gold coins. So I just changed the weight of a coin from 10 coins per pound to 20. This effectively halves that weight allowance while still allowing lots of coins to be carried.
I use the Delving Deeper interpretation of the FMs multiple attacks being based on normal-types of less than 3HD.
I love random character generators. As a DM, they are great for quickly generating a party for a spur-of-the-moment pickup game, or for that henchman or major NPC. Here are the old-school RPG character generators I know of, let me know if there are any more out there and I’ll add them to the list (updated 2025-06-04).
