HARP vs D&D

[mhensley]

I was pleasantly surprised to find my copy of HARP waiting for me when I came home last night.

And yes, I did take advantage of their discount offer. (I sent in three old D20 modules that I knew I would never use and would not be worth the effort to sell them on ebay.) It was a major factor in my decision to give their new game a try. So, score one for their marketing ideas.

Nice art, lots of character building flexibility without drowning in too many options, lethal combat - so far, so good. I plan on taking this baby for a spin around the block a time or two.

 

[AIM-54]

I sort of think you are missing the point.

Trying to sell a Fantasy game on the supposition that your market is disapointed in some way is an uphill battle. It dwells on an assumed negative. Why is simple: many people who play other games play D&D too. Trying to market to anti-D&Ders, in addition to the general stigma of non-professionalism such a move holds, will automatically net you a smaller target audience.

Much better by far to dwell on the positive. Define your game in terms of what it can do not in terms of what D&D can't. By defining the selling point of your game in terms of D&D, you lose out of the staring gate.

1) I am not trying to sell a fantasy game. My main point has been simply that there is a market for a HARP type game (especially because of its flexibility, as I understand it) and tangentially, there are more than a few people looking for something different from d20. Most of my negativity is simply bleeding off from my current frustration with a mostly inflexible group. Perhaps it's somewhat unfair, but there it is.

2) I do not hate d20 nor do I think of myself as anti-D&D/d20. I have on several occasions, in fact, defended the merits of D&D/d20 to those that would fall under that rubric. I am however, critical of certain aspects of the system, which, in my opinion, HARP addresses in a very positive manner. I personally enjoy playing many different systems, because each one lends a unique flavor to games played with it.

I've seen plenty of positives on this thread to recommend HARP and am likely to pick it up now that I've read it. To me, that says there is a niche and that those of use that want a different fantasy experience from D&D may find what we're looking for there.

 

[Aaron2]

Grim Tales!

Grim Tales isn't so much a game as a game construction kit. Forex, it doesn't have rules for guns just suggested damage ranges. Plus it purposefully limits itself to low-magic. Its probably the closest, however.

BESMd20!

I don't really know much about this which is disappointing considering I've have the SRD on my computer for months now. I do, however, dig the d20 Mecha rules. I used to hate GoO (since I dislike anime) but they have kinda grown on me. They seem to genuinly like making d20 books whereas some other companies seem to do it grudgingly; you really can tell.

And heck, d20 Modern.

My main complain with d20 Modern is the lack of any sort of support for campaigns not set in the current day. The same goes for the Weapons Locker. It would have been trivial to insert equipment from various ages into the equipment lists. Same with inserting D&D's medieval skills. If you want to do anything with d20M other than run a current day adventure you need to buy extra stuff (and stuff that WotC doesn't provide).

A out-of-the-box multi-era/multi-genre one book game would be a neat thing to have. I'm still not sure it would sell very well.

Iron Lords of Jupiter.

ILoJ came out before d20 Modern (or soon after). Its not really a multi-genre game anyway.


Aaron (threadjacking)

 

[Garlak]

I dont think that D&D has any real "problems" that need to be fixed, but I'm impressed enough with Rasyr's behavior on this thread that I'm more inclined to give HARP a look-see. Kudos, sir.

Depends on what you like.

Everything in the system is designed for one thing: High Powered Fantasy and yet some people use it for Low Powered Fantasy without changing things that are clearly made for HPF like:

Inflating HP: No need to piont out the problem with this because it's obvious.
Uber Magic: Rasing the Dead is easy, need I say more?
Classes: HPF classes won't work for LPF most of the time.

Many companies seem to not understand that the system gives the game a certain feel which should fit the genre.

 

[AIM-54]

Depends on what you like.

Everything in the system is designed for one thing: High Powered Fantasy and yet some people use it for Low Powered Fantasy without changing things that are clearly made for HPF like:

Inflating HP: No need to piont out the problem with this because it's obvious.
Uber Magic: Rasing the Dead is easy, need I say more?
Classes: HPF classes won't work for LPF most of the time.

Many companies seem to not understand that the system gives the game a certain feel which should fit the genre.

Couldn't say it better myself.

And I've been trying!

 

[Aaron2]

Inflating HP: No need to piont out the problem with this because it's obvious.

Obvious to you maybe. I always run low power games and I have no problem with D&D or hit points. Just because a game supports high power play doesn't mean its only good for that.

Many companies seem to not understand that the system gives the game a certain feel which should fit the genre.

This is an odd statement. Do you think that some companies use d20 by mistake?


Aaron

 

[Hjorimir]

We looked at HARP and the vast majority (8 out of 9) really, really liked the system. I will run a HARP campaign (probably after my current D&D game finishes up).

 

[Nisarg]

I'm still not understanding where people get off making blanket, asinine attributions like this. Has there been a mass exodus from RPG.net lately?
IME, I tend to find the kind of attitude you and AIM are describing FAR more prevalent among the D&D/d20-hating crowd. I.e., "the majority feel superior towards D&D/d20 products and are unwilling to give these games a fair shot." Just look at how this discussion of HARP has brought people who feel the need to complain about d20 out of the woodwork. Heck, just try having a discussion about d20 over at RPG.net or The Forge.
Conversely, have a discussion about non-d20 systems here at ENWorld, and you usually have a very lively, friendly discussion (barring this one, maybe).

Amen to that.
I have to admit I'm currently a political refugee from RPGnet, but obviously I'm on the pro-d20 side of things (the cause of my aforementioned exile, more or less).

There is a tremendous myth among the d20-hating crowd that D20 players only play D20 because they "don't know any better", ie. that they've never played other systems, and don't want to give the other systems a shot. Ignoring how patently ludicrous this is for a moment, this line of thought is explicatory of a lot of the non-d20 mentality out there today; this idea leads the non-d20 people to be convinced that if they could just get the D20 fans to play another system (any system!) the D20 fans would immediately "realize" how bad their old fun was and how much better this new system is and abandon d20 forever.
Because of course, the assumption underlying all of this is that D20 is such a terrible system no one in their right mind could possibly enjoy playing it. The d20-haters need to understand how, if this "obvious" fact is the case, there are still the vast majority of gamers not only playing D20 but "appearing" to enjoy it. It obviously couldn't be the case that D20 in fact is a very well designed system that has caught the attention and enjoyment of the vast majority of roleplayers, and the opposition are just contrarian spoilsports, no! It must be that this vast majority are totally ignorant yokels needing to be "rescued" from D20.

And to these people it goes without saying of course that there has never been a "good" D20 product and never will be, and by default no matter how brilliant something is supposed to be if it has D20 on it, its instantly poison and evil and not playable in any way.

Note that there are of course many people who mainly play a non-d20 game, but are willing to play d20 stuff, and bear it no ill will. These are not the people I'm talking about, so if you are one of those people, please don't get offended. I'm only talking about the more fanatical kind of D20-haters, the likes of which you might occasionally see at a FLGS trying to convince some kid that Vampire is much better than 3.0, or on RPG.net throwing steaming piles of abuse at people who dare to call them on the absurdity of their assumptions.

Nisarg

 

[Psion]

There is a tremendous myth among the d20-hating crowd that D20 players only play D20 because they "don't know any better", ie. that they've never played other systems, and don't want to give the other systems a shot.

Tell. Me. About. It.

My entire group is composed of people who currently or recently played other systems. Some they may like as much or better than d20 for them, some worse. But we are all playing it voluntarily and none of us come from the realistically rare background of never having played anything but D&D/d20.

Beleive it or not, but one man's junk is another man's treasure. Of of the HARP groupies with 8 posts or so commented about sucky specific prestige classes. This may come as some shock to you, but I actually LIKE those. That the class embodies a specific concept without lots of extra nips and tucks is the precise reason I use them.

If those things don't do it for you then fine, but don't come at me as if I have never lived till I tried something else, because I have. I have my copy of RM... guess where it is...

 

[Nisarg]

Actually, what it appears that you are saying is that you do not like any system which may be competition for D&D. You have made 14 (out of the 24 total that you have) posts on this thread alone, all of them attacking HARP either directly or indirectly.

Fine, you do not like HARP. No problem, but your continual attacks against it, most of which are based solely on your opinions, are doing nothing but making you look bad in the end. Although, I must admit that they are bring more attention to HARP than if you had kept quiet, so for this, I thank you.
)

Rasyr, believe me or not I don't really bear any ill-will toward HARP, and if this thread and my posts on it help you sell HARP then more power to you, as long as its because people are actually informed on what HARP is and have heard both the "goods" and "bads" of it, so they can make an intelligent decision.

Many of my comments on this thread have diverged to not be about HARP at all, but about "fantasy heartbreakers" as a theme or "D20-hate" as an issue. Those that are directly critical of HARP (for example, where I criticize the game system) are critical of actual things in the book; which unless you're blind enough to believe HARP can be all things to all people, or insane enough to believe HARP is flawless, you should concede are all legitimate critiques.

Finally some of my posts here were about business practices. Some were sound business advice in general (ie. about how to market based on promoting your product's strengths, not trying to argue that the game that the vast majority of gamers play and like is "bad fun"), but a couple were specific to actual business practices your company has participated in (namely the anti-d20 promotion). The former should not nescessarily be taken to mean I think you're company is engaged in those practices; the later obviously does apply directly to you though.

Nisarg