Discussion of HARP (as requested by PirateCat)

[mhensley]

After further review...

Its yet another rpg that comes close, but no cigar.

The character creation system is nice and flexible. But I dislike how it made skills to be far more important than your stats. And because of the 40-105 range for stats, they felt very mushy and really didn't give me a good idea of what my character was all about. I liked the culture and job templates, but overall I thought this would have been better as just an OGL character creation book for D20 games.

And speaking of D20, this game would have been much easier to use if it was based on a d20 or 2d10 instead of d100. I know I could convert it to do that, but its a lot easier to just stick with something else instead of trying to change this game to suit me. I think the only reason they use a D100 is so that RM can easily convert their stuff to Harp. Otherwise it just doesn't make a whole lotta sense. I just can't see myself telling everyone to remember to bring their calculators to the game.

The magic system also seemed pretty nice if a little bland. Nothing I haven't really seen before here. Gurps has done spells that you can power up for a long time.

The combat system is what kills this game for me. The rules are ambiguous, badly written, and give no examples for how an average combat is supposed to work. Apparently you are either supposed to be an experienced RM player to understand how it works (I'm not) or you are supposed to read the writer's mind. I'm pretty sure that if you gave this book out to 10 different gamers, you would have 10 different interpretations on how to run combat. And this is the revised rulebook? :\

 

[Rasyr]

Mike,
Sorry that HARP is not to your tastes. HARP is not going to be for everybody. As TGryph posted, he found it to be to his tastes while others did not.

As for the combat rules, well, I don't know what to say about that. Others have not found them ambiguous or badly written. Again, I think it comes down to just differences in style and possibly expectations that you might have had about the system before getting it. Nothing that I can really do there.

I will say that there is a lot of flexibility in the system, including in how combat works, and yes, that sometimes leaves things up to interpretation of the GM. As to whether this is good or bad, that depends on the person playing.

Also, before you completely write it off, have you actually tried playing HARP once or twice? HARP is one of those games that actually plays better than it initially looks/reads. As other have posted on the other HARP thread that PirateCat recently closed, you really ought to give it a try and play it before making your final judgements on it.

 

[mhensley]

No, to be honest, I have not actually played it. I created a character and then tried to put him thru some combat. And that's where I stopped...

I guess my biggest problem with the system is due to movement. Movement rates are in single feet per round. Example- My pc could move 7' per round.
But the rules don't say how close I have to be to an opponent to attack. They don't say how much space my pc occupies. I would say that this is very ambiguous.

My other big problem was with the manuevers. There is no mention of what manuevers can be done in combination. I didn't even know you could parry and attack in the same round until I asked on your forum. Apparently, you can only Parry if you are attacking. How's that for confusing? How about Full Parry? Can I Full Parry and still Attack? I don't know because the rules don't tell me.

Detailed examples with diagrams would go a long way in helping newcomers to understand your game.

 

[Rasyr]

I guess my biggest problem with the system is due to movement. Movement rates are in single feet per round. Example- My pc could move 7' per round.
But the rules don't say how close I have to be to an opponent to attack. They don't say how much space my pc occupies. I would say that this is very ambiguous.

Hmm.... To me, common sense says that I am within melee range of the distance between myself and foe is equal to weapon length. It is just as easy to adapt rules from other systems and say you have to be within 5' to make a melee attack.

My other big problem was with the manuevers. There is no mention of what manuevers can be done in combination. I didn't even know you could parry and attack in the same round until I asked on your forum. Apparently, you can only Parry if you are attacking. How's that for confusing? How about Full Parry? Can I Full Parry and still Attack? I don't know because the rules don't tell me.

I can see what you mean. One of the biggest problem a game author has, especially when writing a new system is making sure that explanations are explicit rather than implicit, which is the problem here. In at least one other location (Two Weapon Combat style description in the skill section, IIRC) it describes how Parry reduces the OB of an attack (in this case reducing both attack equally). Which means the information is there, just not as explicit as it might have been - sigh - another thing to fix in the future.

In D&D, what HARP calls Parry is, IIRC, a Feat called Expertise (or something like that), except that in HARP, this is a built in ability. You move some of your OB to DB - any amount. However, if you move all of it, then that is a Full Parry and no you cannot attack when making a full parry (again implicit as the action describes the circumstance under which an attack actually happens).

Detailed examples with diagrams would go a long way in helping newcomers to understand your game.

You mean just like D&D has?

Well, I had a combat example, but then we revised HARP and I have been extremely busy!! Hmmm... I just had an idea about how I can get another done....

 

[mhensley]

Hmm.... To me, common sense says that I am within melee range of the distance between myself and foe is equal to weapon length. It is just as easy to adapt rules from other systems and say you have to be within 5' to make a melee attack.

I could do this if the rules told me the reach of each weapon. I would have to be at least 3 feet away from someone if I was using a dagger, but could probably be 5 feet away from someone if I was using a sword, or maybe 10 feet away if I using a halberd. But the rules don't tell me such details. See the problem?

Also, arm reach then becomes a factor. How far away can a halfling with a pointed stick reach? How about a giant with a spear? Again the rules don't help me out.

Your rules should tell me how to do this. I shouldn't need to cobble together house rules for something so basic as this.

You mean just like D&D has?

Yes, just like D&D has always had ever since my first basic set from 1979.

 

[Rasyr]

I could do this if the rules told me the reach of each weapon. I would have to be at least 3 feet away from someone if I was using a dagger, but could probably be 5 feet away from someone if I was using a sword, or maybe 10 feet away if I using a halberd. But the rules don't tell me such details. See the problem?

Also, arm reach then becomes a factor. How far away can a halfling with a pointed stick reach? How about a giant with a spear? Again the rules don't help me out.
[/QUOTE]
hmm... sounds like you are used to something that is a bit more miniatures-based than anything else, which HARP is not. It is more story based, and while minis can be used, there are no actual rules for using them.

 

[lord_banus]

I think a little common sense and abstraction is all thats called for. Sure it might be nice to have weapon lengths but if everything was specified like this then the book would be 600 pages long and far from concise. While movement is relevant down to the foot, the mechanics are only relevant at 5' increments much like dnd. It actually works quite well and is less like the game of chess that dnd sometimes falls into. Remember that its the DMs roll to adjudicate things like reach and combat positioning and again, common sense goes a long way.

 

[Belegbeth]

I was a fan of MERP back in the day. That system seem to combine many of the advantages of Rolemaster (reasonably flexible character development, unified mechanic for resolving actions, etc.), but without its disadvantages (viz. endless charts). MERP's magic system was completely wrong for Middle-earth (though that could be worked around, and later rules concerning corruption helped), but the system was both reasonably flexible, reasonably detailed (criticals, spell effects, etc.), and reasonably 'rules lite'.

Looking at HARP recently, I was a bit disappointed to find it much more rules heavy than MERP. I have to admit that I was sort of hoping for a "setting-neutral" version of MERP. But HARP, while not as chart-heavy as Rolemaster, is still rather rules heavy (or at least that was my impression after a quick read).

Are there any plans for a "HARP lite" (a la "Gurps lite")?

 

[lord_banus]

What was it that you found heavy? I also played MERP for a while and I find HARP very light and flexible comparitively.

 

[Belegbeth]

My impression was based on a read in the FLGS, so may very well be mistaken. It just looked like it required a lot more fine-tuned customization with respect to different abilities (and spells, etc.). Not necessarily a bad thing, but it does make generating NPCs a major pain, and introduces a lot more variables into the game for the GM to worry about.

In what respects is HARP more rules lite and/or faster than MERP?