HARP second edition

pawsplay

Legend
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?
 

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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.
 


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 ...).
 

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.
 

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.
 

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.

If you're thinking HARP might be in a "legacy" status I guess there is some evidence of that.
 

If you're thinking HARP might be in a "legacy" status I guess there is some evidence of that.
For now, I'm pretty sure it hasn't been abandoned - the Banecroft adventure just came out, there's still Phil Masters Steampunk setting in the works, which, according to the ICE newsletter, is pretty much dine, and a rules supplement by Nicholas Caldwell (Something Wicked, Something Wondrous). Also, adventures for HARP SF.

Cyradon is also stil in the works, though it seems it might become a RMU setting first (I think they mentioned it will be double-statted for RMU and for HARP, so that's pretty much a question of marketing).

I'm just thinking that in the long run, HARP might be abandoned, but even then, it is pretty complete, so I guess I would be fine with it.

On the other hand, I think HARP is very much Nicolas Caldwell's baby, who runs ICE.
 

I'm slowly re-reading the HARP core book and the Folkways supplement, and their really nice rpg books (both in their own, very different ways).

The system is old-fashioned, sure, but not more so than other systems from the same family (Against the Darkmaster, Novus, Fantasy Express), and somehow, it feels a little more open and fun to me than these others - maybe it's the nice little twists on the core ancestries, or the orc-looking, but culturally totally different gryx. The magic system actually is my favourite from the Rolemaster family, with spells as skills which can be modified when casting.

It also embodies an ethos of character creation that I find myself drawn to - creating your character from building blocks that can be pretty freely assembled and that interact in a certain way. Choosing a culture in HARP and gaining skill ranks from it somehow feels a little different from choosing a culture in Daggerheart and getting one stunt from it. HARP feels like one of these late 90s RPGs that (maybe accidentally) managed to embody social (de-)constructivism by demonstrating that just by mixing some of the more broader strokes elements (culture, vocation, class background) together that make up a person, you already end up with an extreme breadth of possible outcomes. It's allure is quite similar to Traveller's lifepaths. It's not really outcome-oriented and not very playtable facing - you do a lot of stuff that might not matter once you're sitting at the table and rolling the dice, but these days, I'm not even sure how outcome-oriented I want my rpgs to be. Character creation can be great, even if 70% of it never come up at the table.

Folkways doubles down on these ideas - it's more of an essay book that tries to help you outline all the major elements of the fantasy culture you're creating or expanding by providing a kind of checklist. It's clear that a lot of the stuff that it suggests you should do to create your culture will probably never be that relevant, but going through the steps is both fun and might lead you to stuff that you wouldn't have come up with otherwise and that might actually be important. The text is a little wordy, and sometimes reads more like the extensive notes for a great supplement than the supplement itself, but right now, it actually is a great help to me, and there's a lot of thoughts about creating fantasy (or any fictional) cultures in there worth reading. A lot of it is absolutely system-agnostic, but it still feels like a good fit for HARP.
 

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