Mail Room: HARP Hardcovers

 

My set of hardcovers for HARP came yesterday and I am looking forward to diving into this one. I can see the market for this game, those who like Rolemaster's detail, but those of us who don't have the time for its endless complexity and multiple layers of detail.

I feel the critical tables in Martial Law go a long way to restoring some of the detail loss when moving from Rolemaster to HARP, and there seems to be a lot of fans of the magic system here over Rolemaster as well, so I need to check that out.

The books normal quality, not professionally bound but they seem sturdy enough and the paper quality is a bit on the thin side for my taste. I would like a heavier stock, and maybe some of the nicer bindings are spoiling me. They are hardcovers as well, which is a huge plus since it saves me clear Contact paper to cover them. I have softcover books covered in clear Contact paper that have lasted 40 years, so if you want to keep your soft-covers nice, look into this and learn how to cover them nicely.

The Books

I have the base rules, plus the four expansion books: Folkways, College of Magics, Loot, and Martial Law. Martial Law seems the most important, followed by the magic book. Folkways seems more relevant for campaign support, which loot feels the least needed out of the three, and both of these last two books feel optional to me.

The main rule book is, of course, everything you need to play, but without those expanded crit charts I feel combat could get slightly repetitive unless GM leeway is used to avoid duplicate crit results. Then again, GM leeway could be needed even with the expanded charts if the same result happens twice in the same fight. I would modify a result like that, either bump it up or down one, or make up a similar result.

Monsters?

And if I have a request...a cleaned up Monsters book is sorely needed! If some work can be done with the layout of that one, or even an entirely new one created off the existing Rolemaster monster guides, that would go a long way to making this game complete. Either that or I will start creating a conversion system from Rolemaster to HARP for monsters and do this myself. And it would be great if some of the OGR standard monsters could be added to the mix, just to show people this game can do dungeoning well too.

I can play a monster-light game where the focus is just on kingdoms, factions, and people - but a big draw of the fantasy RPG genre is the fantastical beasts and diabolical villains. I don't like it when Rolemaster Classic feels like the more complete game, and I want this game to be able to stand on its own merits and be fully supported.

GM Book?

While I am at it, I would like to see a version of the Gamemaster Law book for HARP. I know, the RMFRP version of this book is pretty generic, but until we have a POD version for this, both, or the Rolemaster series games in general I feel this needs to be said.

Rolemaster Light

Overall? I am happy with these. If I end up putting Rolemaster Classic aside I will always have this system to fill that niche and give me those play experiences. At the end of the day, having played and experiencing the game is more important than the complexity level of the rules you learn. Yes, I am still going for learning and playing Rolemaster Classic, but having this as an option will keep me busy until then.