One of the things I hear repeated the most about Basic Roleplaying (BRP) is that "It isn't a game system, but a game system you use to make your own games." While that describes the system, it scares off players.
Contrary to the misconception that BRP is primarily a tool for game creation, it is a fully playable system in its own right. In fact, it shares the same versatility and playability as other popular setting-independent systems like GURPS, Savage Worlds, FATE, and Cypher System. We don't introduce GURPS as a system solely for game creation; the same should be valid for BRP.
GURPS requires setting the campaign, tech level, and setting, which is trivial. And BRP is mostly the same, with 30 spells in the core book if fantasy is your thing. Need more magic? The Magic Book has four power systems and 140+ spells for your game. Like GURPS, you pick the powers, setting, tech, and campaign and begin playing from there.
You are 100% able to play BRP with the base book, never need another book, and never do any "game design" at all. I can easily do any TV show or Movie with this game: Buck Rogers, CHIPS, the A-Team, Fallout, Rebel Moon, Aliens, Star Wars - anything is easily playable. If you need specific weapons or gear, just use something similar in the book and re-skin it. As people who play Cypher System often say, "It is all flavor!"
Magic items? You can create those using the base book, with the rules covering "items with powers," you will discover that you can make far more items than D&D can give you. You can simulate the "+1 sword" with a sword with a level of "super skill" for a +20% to-hit bonus and perhaps +10 STR, which will bump the character's natural damage modifier up a few levels. Give it a POW value and a few magic spells, and your "+1 sword" is turning into an artifact far more interesting than the MMO "green item" boring junk most D&D games give you.
If I were hard-pressed to create "magic items" for a BRP fantasy game, I would use any B/X game's magic item charts, roll an item, and then start there (use the items with powers rules, BRP p161). Oh, a +1 spear? Give it POW equal to double hit points (2 x 15 = 30), and give it a few permanent abilities (they cost 5 x POW cost), like permanent "always one" sharpen level 2 costs 10 POW (+10% to-hit, +2 damage), and give the spear a spell or two to use the remainder of the 20 POW with (lightning level 1-3 for 3-9 POW per cast, 1d6 damage per level, 60m range).
That is an excellent spear, unlike any other! Give it a name, like Storm Spire, and you are all set.
One of the best parts about magic items in BRP is they recharge POW off the character at 1 point per round (when the character wills the transfer). Sooner or later, the character's POW is expended, and the character needs to rest and recover. The concept that "magic items drain the power of the user" and "the user needs to rest after use" is a fantastic game mechanic. A reason for warrior types to have POW? Yes, that is a thing in BRP, too.
The items are mighty, but I would rather have fewer, unique, and memorable items than "random +1 trinkets off tables." That old, tired D&D junk that exists to give a +1 somewhere is boring and MMO-like. It is 2024, and we can have better things.
Oh, and as items lose hit points, their maximum POW decreases, and they eventually break. The balance of magic items is built into the system, and getting them repaired may require visiting a unique forge, arcane crafter, or other specialist who may need particular components or services to perform the task. Characters could learn to do it themselves, but the rare items would still need to be acquired.
The game has superpowers, mutations, and mutated and powered items, so a Gamma World-style post-apocalypse setting is within reach. One of the best parts about a game is that you DIY all your magic items and "lost tech" artifacts; the players will have no idea what to expect, and each item will be memorable and unique and not something of a random chart we all saw 1,000 times before. I could look at the superpower list in this game, create an "intangibility bracelet" powered by rare one-use neutronium pellets, and have an item no other game has.
Need more superpowers to make lost artifacts with or for your mutations? Pull them from the Super World game. You may slowly creep into "game design" as you continue building your world, but this "scary" game design is nothing you need when you start your game. Any game genre can be started cold with just the core rulebook and laying out a few parameters, like what powers and technology are available.
Design as you go. The most important part is to start playing.
Never let the old "this is only for game designers" thing stop you.
In BRP, everyone is a game designer, and it is so easy to do that it becomes part of the game.
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