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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2011613" data-attributes="member: 1129">First up, this review has already seen electronic publication at RPG.net. I thought that since HARP comes up occassionally and the author is often over here, that I'd bring it over. I've cleaned up the typos where I could find them and added a few words here and there for clarification.Second up, this is a review of the first printing of HARP. When it came time for a 2nd, the company, wisely in my opinion, added more material to the book, most of which can be fond on their website.Onto the review!There are two major problems when trying to get people into roleplaying games. The first is complexity. Rules are vital to a good role playing experience but having too many can quickly bog down newcomers. The second is price. Few RPGs these days are able to be run quickly on their own and be quality games without numerous sourcebooks. Others can't be properly run at all on their own like Rolemaster, Dungeons & Dragons, GURPS and Hero. They all require sourcebooks to alter game mechanics like GURPS Fantasy or Fantasy Hero, or whole other books to get all the rules like Arms Law or the Dungeon Master's Guide. Some may disagree with me saying that GURPS or Hero can perfectly run their own campaigns with just the source book. They don’t have all of those source books selling because they’re not adding a lot to the stew. This doesn't count encounters and monsters, which are usually in a separate book. HARP, High Adventure Role-Playing, comes to the rescue. It's a simple, streamlined version of Rolemaster Standard System that gets the game going and can be started quickly. It allows a high level of customization while sticking with standard fantasy conventions. What's even better is that it's one core book that has everything you need to play for $25.00. Now what does that mean everything you need to play? What about character creation rules? How about a magic system? Monsters? Skills? Rules for advancement? All covered. HARP is broken up into fifteen chapters. The first nine involve character creation. I know that sounds scary, but it's really just a progression of ideas to go from your stats to actual character use. Pick your profession. There are nine basic professions here that cover the fantasy standards ranging from cleric and fighter, to ranger and thief. Those who want to be in the middle can take the rogue, a fighter thief or the warrior mage, a fighter type with some spellcasting abilities. Each profession has favored categories that give you skill points to use to buy skills as well as professional abilities that grant bonuses. For example, the harper gets 4 ranks in artistic. They could use that for acting, dancing, mimicry, play instrument, singing or storytelling. The ranger on the other hand, may learn spells from the Ranger sphere as well as gaining a +10 bonus to one Outdoor skill. By doing this, they give the players a solid template on which to customize their characters. So after you choose your profession, you have to generate your stats. There are a few option ways to generate your eight stats. You can roll percentile dice eight times and as long as all results are over 40, keep it. You can use a point buy of 550 with cost equaling point value on a 1 per 1 basis until the higher stat levels, 91+ are reached, at which point you use a table, or you can use a point buy plus random dice. I always go with point buy as that helps keep things even. Not 100% even as other things come about due to stat placement but fairly even. Next up race and culture. There are the standard races from elf and halfling, to one exotic Gryx, which reminds me a little of the half-orc in its monstrous appearance. Now something different was done here to prevent the numerous half this and half that so common in fantasy RPGs. You can take talents to represent your racial heritage, coming in two flavors, lesser and greater. The cultures are add ons to your race and range from nomadic and rural, to urban and underhill. These bits include background, locations, clothing, demeanor, and starting languages. Based on your culture, you get different ranks in your skills. You've got your professions, race, and cultural background. Now its time to buy your skills. Skills are broken up in large categories with specific skills found within them. They have stats that effect them and have a resolution that varies from All-or-Nothing, to Combat to Special. Those that are special are usually important abilities like PP (Power Point) Development or Endurance (Concussion Hits). Unlike some other games, characters can have a high amount of hit points early on in the game. While the game doesn't have feats, it does have Talents. In the Rolemaster System, you received background options that you used to purchase special abilities or special items. In HARP, you get Talents bought with your standard points. It makes the same mistake that Dungeons and Dragons makes though, and has several skills that do the same thing like Artistic and Athletic, which grant a +10 bonus to all skills in that category while at the same cost, you could take Skill Specialization, which has the same cost, but only effects a single skill. Multiclassing or the ability to take another class, is also handled through the use of Additional Profession. Thankfully, once you've taken an additional profession as a talent, you don't have to pay to rise in that profession again. Having special abilities to customize yourself is useful, but how do you represent your original training at that special location? That would come through Training Packages. These are linked skills that come at a discount and hail from a common background. It's a strong concept that's seen use in Rolemaster Standard System and works well here too. Not a lot of examples but a good solid ground base to work off. I know few Monks who won't take the Jade Dragon ability or few Rogues who wouldn't want the Bounty Hunter package. The only thing I don't like about the packages is that they come after you've already set up your skills as far as character creation goes. By placing this chapter earlier, you'd saved some time and eraser marks on your character sheet. Once you have your character fully created, there are still some minor things to take care of like equipment. The list here contains all of the general items you'll need as well as costs for lodging, transportation and armor. Unlike some games, armor here can be bought either completely or in individual pieces. The system for skill resolution is simple. Take all of your bonuses for a particular skill and roll percentile dice. Check your total roll against the Maneuver Table and see where you land. Examples of different skill uses and optional uses are included to ease players and GMs alike into the system. This ranges from how long it can take to get to 100% of repairing an old watch to haggling over prices to sell the watch in the first place. Like its parent, Rolemaster, there are chances to fail big. Fumbles of different types are collected onto one table so no matter what the subject, combat, influence, mental, moving, physical or spell, you use one table. A solid idea that saves page turning and player copies. Some of the elements are quite humorous. One of the higher rolls on the Mental column, “In the words of a great philosopher, “Doh!”” Perfect for those times when you just don't know what your thinking about. In some ways, I'm amazed at all they managed to fit into the book. Many common dangers of adventuring are covered ranging from falling and drowning, to heat and cold environments. This allows the GM to quickly and without any outside resources, pit his campaign in the far north or the harsh south. Combat gets its own section but is similar in many ways to a standard skill check with some additional modifiers. You total your combat bonus and make an open ended roll. That total is then subtracted from your enemy's defensive bonus. You then take your total, if higher than a 1, you modify it based on your weapon. In the parent system, you had to compare your role minus the defense against a specific AT or Armor Type and then check the critical. Here, it's all one roll. So if you attack with a medium weapon and get a 78 using a mace, you look under Krush and see that you've inflicted a Medium wound for 10 hits and 2 rounds of stun giving foe -10 to all actions. Another big part of any fantasy game, Magic, gets its own chapter. Spells are broken down into spheres, very similar to spell lists. Each spellcasting classes gets its own professional sphere and other spheres like universal, are also available. How do you know if you can cast a spell? First, you have to have as many skill ranks as the spell costs in power points. The example used is a 5 power point spell requiring a skill rank of 5. This is important to note for a few reasons. One, you can modify a spell by scaling it. To cast it in a scaled version, you still have to have the skill ranks equal to the power point requirement of the spell in its new version. Two, it's an individual spell, not like Rolemaster where you learn a spell list. Three, you have to have the power points to fuel the spell. Now what's to stop someone from just taking the most powerful spells at the start of the game? There's a maximum number of ranks per level so at 1st level, you'll find yourself only able to cast a spell worth 6 ranks. The spells cover the standard from healing and augmentation, to arcane bolts and raising the dead. For those who want scaling options, you're covered. For example, Drain Life sucks 1 Hit Per round from a target and gives the caster that Hit. You can improve the range, drain more targets or even increase the amount of drain. For example, lets say that you're badly injured and surrounded by friends willing to lay down their lives. You don't have to increase the range, but want to hit three people and suck 'em dry. This increases the cost by 12 for the increased drain and 8 for the extra targets, giving you a total of 23 power points, requiring you to have 23 skill ranks. Now to me, that covers the players. You have your races, professions, background options, special abilities, and combat. GMs get to play with Herbs and Poisons, Encounters & Monsters, Treasure, and Game Master Guidelines. Players will want the Herbs very quickly as many of them are used to heal damage or augment their abilities. The section on Monsters is brief but provides the GM several creatures to start his campaign off with. I was impressed that they were able to get magic items in the book as well as standard goods. It's important to have something for the players to strive for and achieve after killing orcs and goblins. The guidelines are old hat to me, but to newcomers, they will prove vital for they detail how to award experience points. This system is a little vague and isn't focused on combat like several RPGs are but rather, on achieving goals. Experience is awarded based on the size of the goal. Was it a major goal or a minor goal? Was it a personal goal or a campaign goal? These rules will suffice for players and GMs who want more storytelling in their games as opposed to combat will quickly embrace them. The book ends off with a blank two-page character sheet. The nice thing about ICE though is that they already have several downloads to help players out including some in Excel that work with the character creation guidelines and help with the math. One thing I was pleasantly surprised at was the art and layout. The art is good quality stuff. I guess I'm so used to seeing a wide variety of art ranging from gorgeous to utterly crap in d20 products that I've forgotten that other companies can do a good job with art and layout too. This should come as no surprise as they use some of the same people like Toren Atkinson, Jeff Laubenstien and others whose names I don't see signed with the art, but are impressive nonetheless. Chapters are broken into a large illustration with text describing what's in the following pages. The border is easy on the eyes and the text follows the delicate balance of being easy to read without being huge and wasting space. The book is a little light when it comes to detailing everything. More spells, special abilities, and training packages would encourage more specialization. More monsters, magic items, and advice on experience points would make a GMs job easier. But then the books price and page count would both have to be lifted. I think that they just about have the right mixture of material and potential for more material. About the only thing lacking at all is implied setting but since a separate book is coming out for that, we shouldn't have to worry. Those who'll get the most out of this book are those who are either new to roleplaying and want a simple system to start with. Those tired of endless rules supplements that don't really add anything to the game and return to a simpler, and fun time, will also find HARP refreshing.</blockquote>

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