Brainstorming a BRP Fantasy Campaign

Here is what I've sketched out so far;

Low Fantasy Adventures in the world of Rom'Myr;

1. Character Creation:

Only human characters may be chosen for race. The available human racial identities are Rom’Myr, and the Fir'Bax. Rom’Myr humans are citizens of the Blue Borderlands, the farthest province east in the realm of The Trackless Empire. Sandwiched between the Cold Heath and the Groaning Mountains the Rom'Myr of the Blue Borderlands trade for Bolfian Silk from the non-human desert nomads known as the Strangled. The land of Fir'Bax lies just north of the Blue Borderlands. Uncouth barbarians who scratch a living from the small arable land surrounding the high peaks of the Yani'Hor, the Groaning Mountains. They are extremely xenophobic and war incessintly with the Strangled. This small barbarian kingdom also resent the encroaching Rom'Myrians into their wilderness domain. 

1.1 Characteristics

The primary building blocks of your PC are the seven characteristics from Chaosium’s Basic Role Playing system. Roll 3d6 dice to determine the values of your character’s Characteristics; these being Strenght (STR), Constitution (CON), Size (SIZ), Intelligence (INT), Power (POW), Dexterity (DEX), and Charisma (CHA).

1.2 Attributes

These are based on your Characteristics. They are four in number; Damage Modifier (DM), Hit Points (HP), Major Wound Level (MWL), and Movement Rate (Move).

1.3 Common Skills

This is a list of skills that every PC would have a base knowledge in. They are modified by the PC’s Characteristics if applicable. Some of your Common Skills will be increased by the bonuses given by your chosen Character Class.

1.4 Character Class

Here you are able to shape your PC more to your liking. Choosing a character’s Class will give your PC some Advanced Skills, increase some of your Common Skills, and determine how much money the character has to spend on equipment before play begins.

1.4.1 Class available for selection are as follows; Acrobat, Assassin, Barbarian, Druid, Gladiator, Merchant, Thug, and Ranger. Class choice provides the following relevant characteristic and skill advantages;

1.4.1.1 Acrobat; an entertainer in a bleak land devoid of joy. Your physical contortions provide a more subtle interest to the paying Lords then just flaying you alive would deliver.

Common Skill Bonuses: Athletics +25%, Unarmed Combat +25%.

Advanced Skill Bonuses: Choose either Teaching or Oratory and add +25%.

1.4.1.2 Assassin; those of wealth got there by eliminating their enemies. These enemies are mostly eliminated by paying for murder from secret sects which practice this nefarious trade. You are one who was trained by one these mysterious battle cults.

Common Skill Bonuses: Stealth +25%.

Advanced Skill Bonuses: Choose either Disguise, Ranged Combat, or Tracking and add +25%.

1.4.1.3 Barbarian; you find your home in the limitless wastes and wilderness of at the edge of a decaying civilization. 

Common Skill Bonuses: Ride +25%.

Advanced Skill Bonuses: Survival +25%.

1.4.1.4 Druid; you claim understanding of the spirits and gods which walk unseen amongst man.  

Common Skill Bonuses: Insight +25%.

Advanced Skill Bonuses: Chose one of the following; Beliefs +25%, Lore +25%, or Seduction +25%.

Sample pantheon of Gods;

§  Valett, the Goddess of the Night, having the form of three-eyed warrior-maiden.

§  Hesrace, the God of Caverns and the Night, having the form of calm boy holding a hammer.

§  Baldecigail, the Goddess of and Mother of Lies, seen in dreams as hunting bear.

§  The Exalted God, having the form of fierce camel.

§  Fae, the Goddess of Travel and Woodlands, who visits in visions as abrasive woman holding a scroll.

§  Pelixa, the Goddess of Darkness and the Sextal Goddess, seen in dreams as a crone holding a knife.

§  Feliah, the Goddess of , most often depicted as howling hag.

§  Fryssa, the Unspeakable Goddess, visible to mortals only as abrasive crocodile.

§  Daliica, the Goddess of Wealth, who appears as attractive pregnant woman with the scaly skin of a crocodile.

§  Angiara, Princess of Spiders, having the form of a warrior-maiden holding an obelisk.

§  Reytan, the God of Fate and Patron of justiciars, seen in dreams as crow with horns like an auroch.

§  Suselda, the Goddess of Sin and Queen of Magic, most often depicted as fat cat with the head of a snake.

etc, more to come...

So yeah, I think fleshing out some of these traditional AD&D classes into a simple BRP scheme on top of a flinty fantasy world built from a limited world palate will give me all I need for a wildly fantastic game world. Obvious adventures available within the starting small sandbox would be Deep Cavern Observatory and the free module Sky-Stone-River-Place found over at http://falsemachine.blogspot.com/

After that gut some of the desert and mountain modules from D&D, reskin them with pulpy sensibilities, and pillage all the new content being presented on G+ sources. You should have players turning grey before their time!

I love the OSR

If it wasn't for the Old School Renaissance I don't know if I would have ever found my way back to the most creative exercise I've ever had the privilege to participate in.

Somewhere between eleven and twenty seven I had always been made to feel that playing a table top rpg was something to be ashamed of. But I kept the important books on my book shelves, in the trunk of my car, in my back pocket hitchhiking. Lined paper in rain soaked bus stops scribbled full of fantastic world, villains, connections.

And pissed off because this medium I loved so much had garbage directions for how to play the game. I didn't know this at the time. I felt there must be something wrong with me. If so many people are into this game, fuck it was a cultural phenomenon as big as skateboarding, and I can't get it... What am I doing wrong?

So I gave it up. In 1998 on Lower Hurrican Gulch at an off the grid cabin where I live in the
Elk Mountain range I torched the whole collection. I was getting "real".

I've made many foolish mistakes in my life, and I'm not done yet, but that was by far the worst. I would have limped through life three times less the person I am if I did not resent this act.  Not that my creative endeavors lapsed because I remove rpg's from my daily scribbling, reading life, just that they kept swirling around undirected.

Fast forward to Gary Gygax's death and I'm googling D&D and I stumble upon an essay about some guy traveling across country and showing up at Gary's house and playing. I haven't been able to trace this article down again, but yeah, the author of the essay was saying it was amazing to just drive up to Gary'ss house and there were people hanging out and you could just start playing D&D at the picnic table with the guy who created this game. I am so stupid. Instead of laying carpet in Daytona Beach I could have gamed at Gary Gygax's picnic table. Instead of surfing and doing drugs in Tijuana I could have gamed at Gary Gygax's picnic table. Instead of climbing fourteeners and big mountain skiing down into potential avalanche chutes I could have gamed at Gary Gygax's picnic table. Instead of .... Yada yada yada.

Long story short, the OSR has given back what I thought I lost, and I love you all for it, roll d10 tell me what you get;

1- You are a weepy tart aren't you.
2- My half orc father would suck the juice out of your finger bones,
3- I'm surprised they gave you clothes milk sop.
4- Clean the latrine and we won't kill you, yet.
5- Got any coin?
6- There is room for sycophants such as yourself.
7- I believe your private parts may fetch a fair price on the open market.
8- Rumor is...
9- A breath of fresh air in a cloistered belfry, give this man a fresh towel.
10- Have you tried the sorbet?

Sailing Vessels for USR

For sailing vessels commonly found during the age of Sword & Sorcery pulp fiction adventures I have turned to Elric!'s Sailing on the Seas of Fate supplement from Chaosium for basic seafaring statistics.


There is a nice spread of different types of sailing vessels to be found in its pages; from simple canoe to two-masted brigs and war galleys. It also provides a nice guide of terminology you will find when describing characteristics of sailing vessels.

Having a ready made terminology for adjudicating sea adventures I find immensely useful when I'm trying to provide a nautical setting, and Chaosium does provide enough of this bedrock information.

The book is also useful for providing basic answers to everyday mechanical questions one would encounter plying your fantasy seas regardless of the game system to be used. The most important of these being movement speeds.

One topic the book does not cover are costs of purchasing and maintaining a sailing vessel ins a fantasy world. A sailing vessel naturally occurs as a likely resource sink for adventurers who have looted their fair share of moldering crypts. That and land holdings, estates would likely come up as possible uses for the PC's ill-gotten gains. Mercenary forces too. With enough gold any barbarian dog can put together a band of desperate sell swords, but how much gold is that really? How do you come up with a sensible economic scale for these above mentioned enterprises?

I'm not saying the Elric! supplement should have addressed all these topics, but if you have costs on ships and what it takes in men and material to maintain them on a monthly basis you should be able to extrapolate out all these other concerns for your campaign world.

In the spirit of the USR rules set I have had to approach the Chaosium BRP system with an eye towards stripping game elements and mechanics to a minimum. Seaworthiness, Hull Quality, Structure Points, these all become your USR Hits, Armor, Stats... Specialisms can be used to detail characteristics to differentiate say a war ship from a merchant cog. For example;

The Moebius; a Ghazorian merchant cog, 15 crew members.
Hull Quality: 4         Length: 70'   Beam: 18'  Draft: 7'
Seaworthiness: 22

The Sailing on the Seas of Fate descriptions and uses of the few game statistics for the boat are easily understood, and can be taken out and used on their own in most fantasy settings. The Sailing on the Seas of Fate ship record sheet provides a great compass heading for "stat'ing" up a sailing vessel in USR game terms and can be adequately shoehorned into USR's simple format.

From my experience with D&D, Champions, GURPS, BRP, etc. vehicles in general become overly complex character sheets and their utility gets buried under the time heavy bookkeeping and cost calculating. For both the player and the GM. And vehicles in a campaign world, at some level become a commodity and therefore must be able to generated in large numbers.Through USR I am trying to reduce the paperwork so everyone can spend more time courting adventurous death. Unless your players want a crunchy sea battle. I think these rules can be used with battle maps and detailed turn sequences if everyone wants to game out a tactical simulation.

I found Zach S.'s Wavecrawl Kit a useful tool as well for random encounters at sea. Combined with the Sailing on the Seas of Fate event tables I have plenty of material to game out fantastic Sword & Sorcery sailing adventures. If the supplementary rules I'm hacking into my Sword & Sorcery game are lacking in any area I would say I don't have rules for flying creatures and vehicles. At some point I will search the web for useful rules to hack and add them in.

Pulp PDF's

This seems to be a site where you can download a pdf of old pulp magazines available in the public domain.

This type of original source material should be of keen interest to the harried Game Master desperate for plot hooks, npc's, adventure seeds, world info, items, etc.

Thanks to +Rob Garitta for pointing this site out.