HARP second edition

[pawsplay]

So, what's the deal? I played MERP and Rolemaster 2e back in the day. Recently, I dipped into Rolemaster Unified, and I liked some things about it, while hating the art and having some criticisms of a few subsystems here and there. So, quite a while ago, I thumbed through a copy of HARP and... well, it didn't grab me. But I see there's a second edition now.

So, the new HARP. What's good, what's bad. How does it compare to HARP 1e? Specifically, what's different, and how much of a difference does it make?

 

[Swanosaurus]

I don't know the first edition, but I seem to remember having heard that they did mostly cleanup work - though a lot of it. Like making character generation balanced by default, re-doing all the core supplements like College of Magics. The gameplay itself probably hasn't changed significantly.
I kind of like leafing through HARP because it makes me nostalgic and has a few nice twists for the classic fantasy races (like peaceful orcs, sorry, Gryx, Halfling wanderlust, and I think some nice twists on dwarven beards), but overall, it always seemed like an RPG that doesn't quite know what it wants to be to me. Parts of it a nearly Rolemaster-complex, and in comparision, others feel simplistic - and not a lot is gained by boiling the damage table down to just the crit table (looking up crits separetely was really never the problem in MERP or RM), and some variety and fun lost.

The Folkways supplement is nice, though; it has a lot of general (and good) advice on building fantasy cultures. It's stuck a little bit between that, being a HARP rules supplement and also a setting supplement for both Shadow World and Cyradon, so there will always be big parts you won't be using, whatever you want out of it, but is still good. There's a HARP supplement on Religion in RPGs by the same author, but I don't have it - if it's of the same quality, it's certainly worthwhile.

And if they finally manage to get an expended Cyradon out, I'll definitely be on board, because it's a REALLY cool setting that went totally unappreciated in its time.

 

[pawsplay]

So, just to clarity, I think the name of the newer edition is HARP Fantasy.

 

[Swanosaurus]

It's two years later, and I find myself eyeing HARP every few months. I still enjoy reading around in the core rules and in the Folkways supplement, and I really like chargen in HARP - it has all the right building blocks and offers flexibility without being overwhelming. I still wouldn't know about the actual gameplay, because I never brought it to the table, but I played a lot of MERP back in the days, so I think I have a general idea.

I think it scratches an early nineties itch for me that keeps getting stronger. That was the time when I started gaming "seriously", discovering RPGs like CoC, Stormbringer, Pendragon, MERP and Shadowrun, and what mattered most to me back then was being able to create sufficiently individualized characters that felt true to the fiction that I liked to read and developed organically. During the 90s, these ideas were often burdened with more and more rules, but the first games of that type struck a good balance, as far as I am concerned, and HARP feels like that. A little clunky sometimes, a little mired in legacy stuff (like buying characteristics on a scale of 1-100+ just to then convert them into bonuses), but generally aiming for an admirable diversity and plausibility in characters.

Also, crit tables that make you think twice about starting combat. Or thrice.

EDIT: Also, at this point, I kind of like how it is supported by its publisher. They are glacial, but still, about once a year, a new book comes out, and they stick to it and keep supporting HARP. I hope they will keep on doing it (Rolemaster Unified seems a lot more succesful, so I fear that they might end up diverting all of their energies to it ...).

 

[pawsplay]

On the official forums, they told me Rolemaster Unified looks the way it does because they can't justify an art budget, so "successful" requires some qualification.

 

[Swanosaurus]

On the official forums, they told me Rolemaster Unified looks the way it does because they can't justify an art budget, so "successful" requires some qualification.

Well, it's probably very relative. I was just going by their drivethru publisher site (which is, I think, their only venue, so it should be representative), where the first 8 ICE bestsellers are Rolemaster, followed by one brand-new HARP book, then two RM again, then the HARP fantasy core book and then a lot of RM old and new again.