Sell me on HARP

[Gundark]

I got a hold of the Harp lite rules and was flipping through it. I have a few gripes with d20, nothing serious but enough to get me looking at other games. I have played rolemaster in the past and wasn't too found of it due to it's comabt charts.....I noticed that HARP has the same kind of thing. What are the pros and cons for the system? How fast is game prep? How smoothly is the combat system? The magic system? Are the rules easy to pick up?

 

[Crothian]

I like the verstaility of the point system. The charts takle a bit of getting used to for me since I was coming from systems that weren't using them. I relaly like the suppliments and the options those bring the game. They are uyseful and easier to use then most other games.

 

[Akrasia]

I would say, based on my limited experience with HARP, that it is roughly equivalent to d20 D&D in terms of game prep, complexity of combat system, etc.

The differences are elsewhere. If you like detailed 'critical hits', you will prefer the HARP combat system over d20. HARP's magic system is more 'customizable' than d20's system. The character creation system in HARP seems to allow for greater diversity than d20. HARP's use of charts may be a distraction if you're not used to them. Etc.

I'm probably not being terribly helpful here. Suffice to say, if you're looking for asystem that is 'lighter' than d20/3e, HARP is not it. OTOH, if you're looking for a system that can do 'D&D-style' fantasy, but in a really different way, then HARP may be what you're looking for.

 

[der_kluge]

I think Akrasia is right. I have a review of HARP on here. But it doesn't really cover the questions you're asking.

I've only ran HARP once... I think it preps more or less like D&D does with one large exception - NPCs take way longer to create, and monsters are more difficult as well, because a lot of them (like skeletons) are templates - and since it takes so long to create a basic character, some monsters can take longer as well. There is a chargen spreadsheet which helps a great deal, though, but it's still fairly tedious. One could be inclined to gloss over a lot of the secondary stuff. It's probably the kind of thing that one could get very good at over time, but I think the learning curve for doing that might be fairly steep.

But, what I do like about HARP is the creative freedom. The module I ran (at a game day) included a spirit which basically had one spell - a mind control spell. And unlike in D&D, the mind control spell doesn't provide further saves for "suicidal commands". So, this spirit was basically commanding people to kill themselves in random fashion - in fact, the spirit was constantly looking for new and interesting ways of killing people. It was actually difficult to write, because I could only think of so many ways that a person could die, but it turns out, if you think about it long and hard enough, you can get fairly creative with the exercise.

 

[GuardianLurker]

Well, I'm an old Rolemaster fan myself. Except for the incredible drag the chart lookups put on combat. So when I heard HARP had simplified that, I was very gungho and went and bought the core rules and the monster book. And a signed up for a HARP game at TerpCon last fall.

When I got there, the GM (Rasyr? Old One? One of the board regulars, and a HARP advocate) said that he was using D&D style damage for the game because it slowed down combat too much for the combat-heavy nature of the module.

The module was about as combat-heavy as your typical D&D dungeoncrawl (which is what it was, essentially).

I came away very dismayed, as HARP also lost a lot of the class/race/skill structure that appealed to me so much.

For myself, I'll just stick with Rolemaster and some form of electronic combat aid.