The gold leatherette book for the Basic Roleplaying System arrived today and is an excellent volume. The paper quality is the same non-glossy satin, a sort of "soft, not slick" paper stock that is heavy, sturdy, and pleasant. It is also lighter than a heavier clay-glossy paper book; while those are nice, this is nice, too.
BRP is a one-book GURPS replacement for me. Nothing will beat GURPS as a character designer, but as a more straightforward game that does roughly the same thing GURPS does, but with a character development system that rewards using the skills you use, not those you don't. BRP is good enough for me and does the classic open-ended percentile system about the best.
This is far different from a level-based system, where if you do not use a dagger for 20 levels and pick one up, you suddenly become a master knife fighter. In BRP, if you want a skill to improve, you must use the skill. If you want magic, learn magic and use the magic.
In GURPS, you can just "buy magic" and say, "I learned it." Typically, a good referee requires a good reason, but out-of-the-blue stuff can happen. In an initial purchase, it can also occur in BRP, but improvement is directly linked to use. Level-based systems are even worse. They give you freebies. You never have to explain how you learned, and I find that I never use many of them because they never fit into my character concept. You can multiclass and never explain how, all of a sudden, a warlock became a part-time paladin.
BRP reminds me of the classic Top Secret System, but it has been highly evolved and refined over 40 years of development. This separates BRP from any DriveThruRPG or Kickstarter percentile system; while those may have the buzz and flash, BRP has had 40 years of development, play, and experience. Is BRP slightly heavy in terms of rules? Yes and no, most of the system is optional, and you can just use the system as a clean combat and task resolution system, roll 1d100, apply damage, next turn, and ignore almost all of the special rules. Every old-school system does this at heart and does not expect you to "follow all the rules," while today's games often depend on the rules to keep them working correctly.
BRP could easily create a Top Secret or even a James Bond 007-type RPG, maintain that percentile-game feeling, and have the crunch and skills to make the game more than a 5E-style "room-based combat simulator." Spy games need a good skill base, with various specialties for experts and character types. If you think back to the Mission Impossible TV series, you will have disguise specialists, art experts, infiltrators, technical people, and all other types assembled for a team mission.
If I did a Mission Impossible-style game, each player would have a few characters with different specialties, and the team leader (who would rotate) would choose the characters from the group. That way, a player could have an 'art expert' character and another character as an 'Olympic Triathlete,' and different missions could call for various experts. BRP is simple enough to run multiple characters, while other systems are far more complex.
Top Secret and the 007 game never had a robust character advancement system like BRP. Even Gangbusters or Star Frontiers could be implemented just as effortlessly by BRP. The latter would need a few items ported in, but the Chaosium percentile system is decades beyond the abandoned TSR ones and, frankly, likely what TSR was trying to implement and compete with. Yes, the TSR systems were more simple, but BRP stood the test of time and outlasted them by decades and companies.
Also, since BRP is a more streamlined system, it is far easier to get into than a more robust implementation of the same system, such as Runequest. While this is the same engine that powers Runequest, the rules in RQ are more in-depth and layered than those in BRP, with many more subsystems and specific character options for the RQ world.
BRP is supposed to be more of a "base system" that is to be layered upon. You can play BRP as-is, but the book says you must put on your game-designer hat and add world-specific rules that your game needs. Granted, BRP comes with many options to use; encouraging players to become game designers is how old-school games were played.
I do feel BRP is easier to begin that RQ, but they have a beginners box for RQ that is coming soon.
What is so great about BRP and Runequest is the Skyrim-style improvement system. Your character starts without a class with beginning abilities based on background and choices. To improve a skill, you must use it successfully. In d20 games, you can never shoot a bow, get five levels, and be better at it. Some classes even give you free bow powers while you were never using that bow! I can do the same in GURPS by adding character points that improve bow skills without using them, but I would disallow that as a referee.
Too many people like the d20 freebies and automatic advancement. This is even present in the OSR and almost every class-based game design.
Earning my skills through use gives me greater satisfaction and connection to my character. It also gives me a greater connection to my character's story since I can look at those skills and know why they are as high as they are. If I have a character with high stealth and dagger skills, that tells a story of every advancement. I wonder why they are that good in a class-based system. Did they find a 5,000 gold piece gem and get a few levels in a 1 XP for 1 GP system? Did they complete a roleplaying quest as a part of a party (and only really did something to earn them) and just ride along for the XP?
I wonder why that class-based system character is good.
In BRP and Runequest, I can look at my character sheet and instantly know why. The story is a part of my character, as are my choices and the good and bad things that happened along the way. When you start a character, you still determine where your character will go, depending on your choices. Very few OSR games use this sort of "open system." If they do, I guarantee they haven't been around for 40 years and have also tested this well.
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