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Harnmaster...a more mature and complex rpg?
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<blockquote data-quote="Jan van Leyden" data-source="post: 6101235" data-attributes="member: 20307"><p>I ran a rather short Hârnmaster campaign 20 years back with the first edition rules, but what Paul writes sounds very familiar.</p><p></p><p>What drew me in back then was the seemingly powerful set of rules and Hârn as fascinating game world. Rules and world together set the stage for some deep immersion gaming as the characters are deeply rooted in the world and all the sites and people they encounter have a pretty real feel to them.</p><p></p><p>The pre-game for character generation is fantastic. Players and/or GM select the kingdom where they were born, randomly roll-up mountains of game data, and are let loose at the age of 12-14 (?). The playerthan makes a sequence of fundamental decisions: most characters are born unfree, so the first decision is whether to stay with the family or try to break the bonds of servitutde, e.g., by fleeing to a city. Having reached the city (how did the lord react to this? What happens to the character's family?) with all the skills of a 12 year old son of an unfree farmer, how does he survive the year? Without the money to pay for apprenticeship? Anf or course Hârnish cities are quite different from each other...</p><p></p><p>The end result is a ready-to-play character with a profound history and a matching skill-set. Weapon skills? Not so much. If he achieved some acceptance, he might have to take turns on the city wall and learn some skills like Spear, but that's about it. And he's probably dirt-poor.</p><p></p><p>Another notable different to the D&D way of doing things is the combat system. It is very detailled and offers lots of chances to lose, even if you win the fight. The first combat encounter I ran was a chance meeting with a brown bear, not a dire grizzly, mind you, but an ordinary brown bear. The party managed to oust the bear, but one of them hobbled forever after due to a single blow to the leg. And with such a detailled system, hobbling really has some detrimental influence on a lot of skills. At least nobody died of gangrene...</p><p></p><p>In short, we decided that Hârnmaster didn't feel heroic enough for us to run a longer campaign. As far as I know the rules never jumped on the easy-to-use and elegant bandwagon, but the main difference is one of style. Hârnmaster supports a pseudo-medieval style of gaming with a heavy dose of faux realism.</p><p></p><p>Think of the movie Braveheart. In D&D mode, the characters would be Braaveheart himself or his companions. In Hârnmaster they would be any of the hundreds of extras on the battlefile. 'They might do heroic things, but no-one will write a song about them.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jan van Leyden, post: 6101235, member: 20307"] I ran a rather short Hârnmaster campaign 20 years back with the first edition rules, but what Paul writes sounds very familiar. What drew me in back then was the seemingly powerful set of rules and Hârn as fascinating game world. Rules and world together set the stage for some deep immersion gaming as the characters are deeply rooted in the world and all the sites and people they encounter have a pretty real feel to them. The pre-game for character generation is fantastic. Players and/or GM select the kingdom where they were born, randomly roll-up mountains of game data, and are let loose at the age of 12-14 (?). The playerthan makes a sequence of fundamental decisions: most characters are born unfree, so the first decision is whether to stay with the family or try to break the bonds of servitutde, e.g., by fleeing to a city. Having reached the city (how did the lord react to this? What happens to the character's family?) with all the skills of a 12 year old son of an unfree farmer, how does he survive the year? Without the money to pay for apprenticeship? Anf or course Hârnish cities are quite different from each other... The end result is a ready-to-play character with a profound history and a matching skill-set. Weapon skills? Not so much. If he achieved some acceptance, he might have to take turns on the city wall and learn some skills like Spear, but that's about it. And he's probably dirt-poor. Another notable different to the D&D way of doing things is the combat system. It is very detailled and offers lots of chances to lose, even if you win the fight. The first combat encounter I ran was a chance meeting with a brown bear, not a dire grizzly, mind you, but an ordinary brown bear. The party managed to oust the bear, but one of them hobbled forever after due to a single blow to the leg. And with such a detailled system, hobbling really has some detrimental influence on a lot of skills. At least nobody died of gangrene... In short, we decided that Hârnmaster didn't feel heroic enough for us to run a longer campaign. As far as I know the rules never jumped on the easy-to-use and elegant bandwagon, but the main difference is one of style. Hârnmaster supports a pseudo-medieval style of gaming with a heavy dose of faux realism. Think of the movie Braveheart. In D&D mode, the characters would be Braaveheart himself or his companions. In Hârnmaster they would be any of the hundreds of extras on the battlefile. 'They might do heroic things, but no-one will write a song about them. [/QUOTE]
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Harnmaster...a more mature and complex rpg?
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