HârnMaster 3 pdf available free from CGI!

[BryonD]

I thought that was the whole point

Well certainly it can be.

And honestly, if luck had seen to it that someone other than DongMaster first replied to me, things may have gone a vastly different path. So, for me personally already being the anti-Harn guy for reasons having NOTHING in the world to do with mechanics AND me being FAR FAR from proficient in the HarnMaster system, it just didn't make much sense for me to go there.

I hope you understand. It certainly isn't an effort to blow off the discussion.

 

[tkinias]

But if thou wilt bequeath thine debased troll with the honor, I believe I shalt linger hither for some time.

Linger on, o debasèd Troll! I shall offer no let to thee; parley as thou wilt.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Lots of people seem to believe that HârnMaster is a complex game. As Iron Chef said, and you seem to agree, it is nowhere near as complex as people think. The basic system is one of the simplest & most straightforward I know. Why do people assume that it will be complicated? Becuse it uses a graphic injury system, not Hit Points? I find it no more difficult than DnD and a damn sight simpler than many games, which, out of politeness, I won't name.

Spot on.

The Harnmaster rulebook pagecount is much smaller than 3e while having the same basic advantage of a unified skill system. In actual play it is comparable to 3e. Yes, you have location damage. But you do not have the dizzying array of bonuses/maluses a mid/high level character will have to their AC/Attack Bonus. It is really a matter of where you prefer your bells and whistles.

 

[DongMaster]

And honestly, if luck had seen to it that someone other than DongMaster first replied to me, things may have gone a vastly different path.

You seem to have an obsession with me like I have with this thread...

Now, what people usually mistakes for elitism like Iron Chef (is that with Bork, Bork, Bork!?) told us about, is nothing more than enthusiasm and occassionally vast knowledge of the medieval eras, techniques and such. People usually gets ticked off by these facts and some even takes it personal (god knows why) because their skills are not in the same league (I know mine sure ain't compared to some of the history buffs on the Hârn Forum but I value their knowledge immensely), or that they do not care. To me that is not the same as being a snob or whatever.

Returning to HârnMaster... The game is perfect for Hârn and is what most of the Hârniacs use. Is it perfect? No, not really but it is the most perfect for my game, and adding house rules are extremely easy. In short the game is very slick (I am talking about the 3rd ed.) and not as complicated as many would have thought. Besides I bought the D&D 3.0 rules when they came out to check 'em out, but my brain almost exploded when reading through the three books. HârnMaster complicated? Hardly. D&D? To my mushy brain yes. I am still awed how you guys can remember all those race, class etc. modifiers, feats, bonuses, tactics, and much more. I for one sure couldn't.

That is why the system works so well in a computer game like Temple of Elemental Evil, where the computer does all the number-crunching for you. Down in the dungeon I go...

 

[Mobius]

We have clearly established that there are plenty of non-elitist Harn folks ...

I find it funny, ByronD, that I have had exactly the opposite experience with Harn: anti-Harn prejudice. The first time I tried to do some proselytizing over here on EnWorld, I spent a few hours coming up with my introductory post, rewriting and rewriting, trying to make it as inoffensive and positive as I could. I should add here that I write all the time and am no slouch at getting the tone to fit the intent, etc. I fully expected that I would get a healthy dose of "d20 roks, HarnMaster suxx ass." which I was fully content to write off as drivel ... but I was wholly unprepared for the level of antipathy I experienced. A good round dozen people responded, calling me an elitist snob and inviting me to take my game and go home. I attempted a couple of times to clarify the points that seemed to be causing the biggest issues, but by and large those folks were basically uninterested in speaking rationally. I pretty much avoided EnWorld after that because it so soured me on the community. In comparison, the Harn Forum was a model of decorum.

I thought long and hard afterwords about how I could have phrased things more eloquently or in a more inoffensive manner, but I have to say that I don't know where I could have done better except on minor points. It truly seemed to me like the folks here were predisposed to disliking anyone who espoused HarnMaster. Now, there were only about twelve of them, but ...

I see the same thing in my own gaming group, too. I bring up HarnMaster and they all start griping about how hard it is to understand, how archaic the mechanics are ... and then dive into RMS for their own campaigns. What ridiculous irony.

 

[tkinias]

I find it funny, ByronD, that I have had exactly the opposite experience with Harn: anti-Harn prejudice

There certainly is quite a lot of that out there. My first encounter with Hârn, oh, about a dozen years ago (it was still in the first edition then) was picking it up at the local game store, thumbing through a little, and asking if anyone knew it. The reaction was `super-realistic combat, but way too complex and totally unplayable'. To my lasting regret, I put it down and didn't give it another look for the better part of a decade. The irony -- which I only see now -- is that these guys were RM players who used to look down their noses at the AD&Ders, GURPSers, Vampirers, etc., for playing `baby' games.

Even recently, when a friend and I tried to get a group to switch from RM, which we were all sick of, to HârnMaster, there was considerable resistance until they actually saw it played. The assumption, I guess, was that it was some kind of fantasy Advanced Squad Leader.

I am beginning to suspect that the reason for this is that Hârniacs tend to gush about things like the level of detail in HârnWorld and the realism of the combat rules much more than they gush about the simplicity of the system. That is probably because there are a myriad systems which are extremely simple -- mostly IMHO to the point of being uninteresting -- making that not seem like such an outstanding feature. What makes it all click for us is that it <em>combines</em> the detail and realism (for which, at least the latter, it's certainly not unique) with elegance (which is also not unique). It is the combination which is exceptional.

 

[GrumpyOldMan]

Things I Like About HÂrnmaster

To try to keep this thread on topic, here are:

THINGS I LIKE ABOUT HÂRNMASTER

Character Generation:
Generating a HârnMaster Character can take quite some time, certainly compared to the old AD&D roll 6 Character Stats, choose a character class, roll hit points.
In HârnMaster there are 12 stats to roll and every skill has a base chance calculated from three of these stats. The maths can be a little tricky, but it is not that difficult once you understand the mechanic. As with most games there are several (free) character generation programmes out there to make the GM’s life easier. HârnMaster character generation includes family size and background and the relationship between the character and their family and can even generate the characters home area.
Personally, I love this level of detail. Player characters have parents & siblings; they have a home town, or village: they are grounded in the world. They have a place where they are known (for good or ill). I realise that some people don’t like this level of detail, but as GM I love the opportunities it gives. Perhaps that ‘missing’ sister will turn up with a tale to tell, what happens when the ne’er do well brother breaks a leg out poaching, to the players cover for him, or hand him over to face the sheriff’s justice? If these opportunities are not for you, you can simply create a character without a background.

Game Mechanics
Make one percentage dice roll. There are only four results:
Critical Failure
Marginal Failure
Marginal Success
Critical Success
As has been discussed HârnMaster is a percentage based skill system. Less than your skill percentage succeeds, more fails. Critical rolls are those successes or failures ending in a 5 or a 0. How simple is that?
Combat is slightly more complicated. The two protagonists make opposed rolls and cross reference the result on a 4x4 matrix. Any hit is then resolved by rolling hit location. The magic & religious rules follow the same system. That, in less than 100 words, is pretty much the entire system. So, exactly how is this complicated?

Skill Index (SI)
If other games systems use this I haven’t found them yet. A skill index (SI) is the ‘tens’ part of a characters skill. A character with a 33% Weaponcraft skill has a SI of 3, A character with a 73% Weaponcraft skill has an SI of 7. This in one simple rule addresses the complaint that whether a character is a novice Weaponcrafter or an experienced one a critical success makes a weapon made by a novice as good as one created by a master. The SI system provides a simple matrix giving the value added based on the characters SI. In practical terms, a masters failure results in a weapon of the same quality as a novices success. This can apply to anything, that tavern singer with Sing 40% is, at her best, not as good as the trained bard giving an average performance, a good fisherman catches more fish than a poor one! Simple, neat, easy, I like it!

HârnWorld is Systemless
I came to HârnWorld before HârnMaster. Even if Hârn was a dreadful rules system, I’d still love HârnWorld. The background is completely systemless. The Kingdoms & Regions of the island of Hârn and Lythia (the adjacent continent) are described without any rules based information. No character classes, or levels, or HârnMaster skills, craftsmen & residents are described simply as people doing their job with a guide as to how good they are at their job (1-5 stars) and what they charge for their goods/services (low to very high prices).

Odds & Ends
Hârn & HârnMaster are perceived as ‘low magic.’ It isn’t there are some powerful spells, but magic is rare. There are few mages on Hârn and they try not to draw too much attention to themselves. However, it is a lot easier to add magic, if you want more, than to remove it. I play pretty loose with some of the magic rules in my campaign.
Hârn is ‘the game where you play turnip farmers.’ No-one here has said that, but it has been said many times. Why do people think this? Is it because the rules are flexible enough so that, if you want to play poor peasants battling the weather & cruel overlords to survive, you can? Why should this be a problem? Players may be noble, guildsmen, common, serf, slave, skilled warriors, streetwise thieves, hunters at home in the wild forests, pretty much anything. There is no ‘you must be a peasant’ rule.

Grumpy Old Man
Because my kids tell me I am!

 

[BryonD]

Hello Mobius,

You won't get any dispute from me on that.

I certainly known some people that would claim things to the effect that D&D was the only real game, or more recently, that D20 is the system to top all systems, without room for compare.

I suppose we just both got really unlucky draws on who we met along the way.

But the people I have met here (and based on them a brief lurking on their forums) makes me much more comfortable that it was just that for me, a bad draw.

 

[tkinias]

Hârn is ‘the game where you play turnip farmers.’ No-one here has said that, but it has been said many times. Why do people think this? Is it because the rules are flexible enough so that, if you want to play poor peasants battling the weather & cruel overlords to survive, you can? Why should this be a problem? Players may be noble, guildsmen, common, serf, slave, skilled warriors, streetwise thieves, hunters at home in the wild forests, pretty much anything. There is no ‘you must be a peasant’ rule.

Yes, this is another common one. I think this is an effect of the classless system. Because there isn't the clear distinction between `adventuring' classes and `common' people (just social distinctions among nobles, burghers, and peasants, depending on setting), one can make an interesting character who is not a `fighter' or `cleric' or whatever. For example, there's no reason I can't have a peasant character who has some knowledge of how to use a pole-arm from service in a militia, who manages to acquire some clerical magic from a cult he joins -- and then, maybe, in the course of play learns to read and gets accepted into a training program for mages. I <em>may</em> start out with a turnip farmer, but can go anywhere with him. For that matter, I could instead have him focus his energy learning to pick pockets and scale walls. Because there are no levels or classes, I don't need to worry that if I do the equivalent of getting a couple levels as a thief or cleric I will somehow cripple myself in the long run (by never being able to get the high-level goodies in my primary class). So long as you don't die of old age (do PCs ever do that?), there's no limit to what you can learn.

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

In Germany you have a hard time to find someone willing to play that system because of its name...

Evidently, "Harnmaster" would mean "bladdermaster".