Back in April, in yet another moment of surrender to temptation, I received the .PDF of Classic Fantasy – the supplement for Mythras (newly branded from RuneQuest6) – in lieu of the hardcover copy of the same tome due to arrive in the summer. At the time, I wrote about why it “might very well hit the sweet-spot in terms of fantasy roleplaying”. I went on to play a series of solo sessions using the rules to emulate the 1983 D&D Red Box “First Adventure”.
Last night, in a sort of heart-to-heart moment with one of my oldest and certainly most loyal roleplaying friends, I explained that Mythras Classic Fantasy certainly seems to be the closest I have ever come to finding the “ideal” fantasy roleplaying experience for me. What saddens me is that, through my long history of flitting from system to system in the quest for just that “sweet-spot” game, I’ve managed to drive all my players crazy: in short, we never play anything long enough to really “get our teeth into” higher-level play. Several players have, over the last 18 years or so, deserted me as Gamemaster for just that reason. These days, hearing me talk about Mythras Classic Fantasy must sound quite hollow to them.
Here, then, is my apologia – a formal written defence of my opinion and conduct – on why it’s time to play Mythras Classic Fantasy.
From the Roots of All Roleplaying…
Gamers who have played with me probably also know that I got into roleplaying games through two routes almost simultaneously: my Dad bought RuneQuest (2nd Edition, 1980) while my friends introduced me to both Dungeons & Dragons (1981) and Traveller (1977). We were about 10-11 years old when we began, in late 1981 or ’82.
The scenario and rules that started it all for me…
RuneQuest, and the fantasy realm of Glorantha, fascinated me. I remember rolling up characters and playing solo in my bedroom, mostly because my friends wanted to play Dungeons & Dragons and Traveller. Later we played Star Frontiers and eventually got into Rolemaster. While I also loved Traveller from the get-go, when it came to fantasy gaming it was RuneQuest that captured my imagination. Looking back on it all, it’s obvious to me now that the appeal of Rolemaster and (later) Palladium Fantasy (1st Edition) was rooted in RuneQuest‘s d100 system.
RuneQuest was one of the “big three” games in British roleplaying in the 1980’s. Alongside it was Dungeons & Dragons (at least in my gaming circle). Together, these games were the root of my roleplaying experience. Since those heady daily gaming sessions after school, I have been seeking to re-discover that spark which originally inspired me. In April 2016, a spark did indeed light something deep within me…
Of Gygax, Perrin, and Hargrave…
I’m a child of Gary Gygax, Steve Perrin, and David Hargrave. Those are the fathers of my gaming hobby: Gygax, the creator of it all; Perrin, the master of d100 gaming; and Hargrave, the mad inspiration of my more recent fantasy worlds.
The Red Box we re-discovered back in March.
To me, the levels and classes of Dungeons & Dragons sit at the foundation of a style of fantasy roleplaying that has proven timeless. If the modern “Old School Renaissance” is anything to go by, the hexcrawl and dungeon focus of the original roleplaying game has never gone away. Although I have been seduced by story-telling games and other styles of play, at heart I’ve discovered that Gygax’s style suits me best. That said, I find Dungeons & Dragons to be more of a game than is sometimes comfortable. As I’ve said before, the prime example of this is the Red Box rule on opening locked doors: if you’ve not got a Thief or a Magic-User with the Knock spell, you can’t open a locked door in that game. It’s always jarred with me.
That’s why Perrin’s RuneQuest was always superior. I still love the elegant d100 mechanic and the way in which your characteristics influenced your ability with, to extend the example, the Manipulation skill. In that game, anyone could (in theory) learn any skill and even many spells. It was a less-restricted vision of fantasy gaming that, right from the beginning, inspired dreams and the desire to play games. When I discovered RuneQuest 6th Edition, in early 2013, it was like coming home.
Coming home to RuneQuest coincided with the discovery of David Hargrave’s Arduin in March 2013. As I wrote at the time, I’d never heard of him but came across his work from another blog post, and bought Arduin Eternal. Eventually, having enjoyed that work, I ordered copies of his original works, The Arduin Trilogy. That discovery opened my mind and my heart to the possibilities inherent in all fantasy gaming. His brand of (for want of a better word) gonzo all-in fantastic dreaming inspired me to revisit the idea of my own fantasy world. Hargrave taught me to not be afraid, to challenge the assumptions of the classic original game, but also to grasp onto that which I loved most from my early hobby. In short, I began to heed his advice and “took a troll to lunch.”
The Road to Classic Fantasy
When I first read about the forthcoming Classic Fantasy supplement for RuneQuest6 it was on the back of the news that Chaosium and The Design Mechanism were parting ways. Until that moment, I began to believe that RuneQuest6 would fall away and so I bought up pretty much the whole back catalogue. I had been trying to write my own RPG design, desperately seeking to marry what I loved in d100 gaming to the Gygax-Hargrave vision of class-and-level based gaming. Classic Fantasy, as a concept, made my heart stand still with anticipation.
Here was a supplement billed as, “Dungeoneering Adventures, d100 style!”; looking at the free preview pages, it looked like just what I was hoping to find. When it arrived in April, I discovered that Rodney Leary did not disappoint.
Preamble over, here’s why…
Classic Fantasy: Gygax meets Perrin
I wrote about the basic reasons why I have come to love Classic Fantasy back in April:
“Mythras scratches my itch for a bit more detail than the original editions of Dungeons & Dragons provide… and that’s kind of the point. While I have come to appreciate that, in many ways, the less-is-more approach of the Old School offers a lot to playability, I still hanker to fix those aforementioned problems.”
Here is a game in which you can play any of the Gygaxian character classes from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1st Edition) through to the approximate equivalent of 14th level. You can play that Fighter, Thief, Magic-User or whatever but you also do it using the elegant d100 game system of classic RuneQuest vintage.
Mythras is a very clean and more experienced inheritor of all that is great about classic RuneQuest, married to much-improved combat and magic systems. In and of itself, the game is a very good one. What Classic Fantasy does is help aficionados of Gygaxian tropes to use Mythras to emulate that older tradition. When you consider that Hargrave also ended up with a d100-based system for his own Arduin, Bloody Arduin, there is a great resonance for fans of the 1970’s and 1980’s roleplaying experience.
As I sit here planning my next fantasy campaign, happy to run it using Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition for my friends who prefer that game, it’s obvious to me as the Dungeon Master that my inspiration lies in those earlier experiences. If I was to run the adventures using Classic Fantasy, I’d more accurately evoke the style and setting that I am aiming to emulate because I’d be shedding the accretion of d20-based power-ups that still make me yearn for simpler days.
Interesting Combat & Magic
Yesterday, I played a solo game using Classic Fantasy. One comment hailed the post as “the best solo run entry so far”. Perhaps one of the reasons was the fact that the hero, Goriel, managed to defeat a guard without killing him because Mythras generates exciting and engaging narrative during combat scenes.
Classic Fantasy adds rules for miniatures.
I’ve already written about how Mythras gives you combat with armour that makes sense and heroes who don’t amass more hit points than a dragon. It’s worth reminding you of how the game makes combat exciting by adding opposed rolls, to hit versus a parry or evade, and generates very cool special effects – the very effects that allowed Goriel to put down a guard even though he’s not strong enough to really hurt the fellow. I’ll let you read the earlier article on here, or my original reviews on The Iron Tavern, if you want to know more.
I would, however, add the way in which magic – both arcane and divine – is modelled in Classic Fantasy. In addition to the five different magic systems in the core Mythras rulebook, Classic Fantasy adds rules to emulate the magic of the original Gygax masterwork. It’s done using the familiar magic points that Perrin created, and of which Hargrave would have approved, while giving Magic-Users and Clerics alike the kind of oomph that I missed when revisiting Red Box D&D a couple of months back. In short, you really get the right feeling when you create a Magic-User or Cleric; you can do the specialism thing too, which is very cool.
In Conclusion…
Playing a game of Mythras Classic Fantasy does, as far as I have been able to determine from the half-dozen or so sessions I’ve played solo, beautifully marry the original style of Gygax with the innovative design of Perrin. It allows space for the gonzo explorations of folk like David Hargrave, who wanted to let players run characters who were Trolls or Witch-Hunters. It comes with a lovely default campaign setting, Greymoor, but leaves space for you to create your own hex-crawl or more plotted campaign world. Whatever floats your boat, really.
Some have criticised the brevity of the 336-page supplement, claiming that limiting initial play to the first three Ranks is a problem; to that I say, “Pish!” – that’s the equivalent of 14 levels of old D&D, which was more than enough for most campaigns back in the day. The eventual expansion with the Unearthed Companion will take things all the way to Rank 5, which is 20th level and beyond in old money. Patience, patience, you must learn patience…
I want to play Classic Fantasy more. It’s my desire to bring Mistamere Fell to life using these rules that hit my sweet-spot and, perhaps, one day in the not-too-distant future I’ll get to do just that. The big thing that this game helped me to realise, however, it that you CAN play classic Gygaxian fantasy using the gloriously elegant d100 system that Perrin gave us in 1980.
Game on!
Hi Peter,
Fantastic post. I can sympathize with all you write. My players, at least half of which have been with me since 1978, have seen me switch games more times then you can imagine. Like you, it seemed we could never get all that far into a campaign before some new game caught my eye and I had them creating new characters. For what it’s worth, we switched to BRP more then 10 years ago, and now having moved my book to Mythras, we feel we have finely found the only game system we will ever need again. It checks every box I look for in a game.
Thanks for the great post.
Excellent post! I’ve been playing BRP from the start, buy only recently discovered Mythras. So far, I’m very happy with the switch.
I’m just hoping I can keep a character for more than a couple of sessions before setting and system butterfly…
To be fair to our GM I’m not as frequently at the table as I’d like (real life doesn’t half get in the way!) and whilst I don’t feel too loyal to any single system I’d value a stretch of consistency whatever we choose to play.
Game On!
I hear you. Turn up and I’ll do my best to deliver a consistent game.
Good post. I also wonder about how my players have coped with change of system. However system change does not always mean a campaign change. I got back into d100 with Legend, but although I enjoyed it it did seem to be missing things. RQ6/Mythras seems to have closed that missing thought. Now I have changed by players from Legend to it and they spent a year playtesting CF which they loved as it reminded them of games in the past. Currently playing a Hellenistic Greek campaign and working on the CF one to follow adapting The Drow War trilogy to CF. Then restarting my 14th Century game with Mythras.
Great game system
It sounds like you like Mythras for exactly the same reasons I like GURPS Dungeon Fantasy.
I like GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, but when I tried to prep I faced a lack of pre-designed creatures and magic items. I’m hopeful that the forthcoming box set will address that, but Mythras has all that done right now, without me buying numerous supplemental booklets. Basically, GURPS is a great system but takes me too much time to prep.
Gurps, in any incarnation, is a prep heavy game, but runs smooth when you play. Biggest thing to keep in mind is to not use all the rules. KISS!
It works especially well with virtual table-top environments, where so much of the fiddly bits can be automated by the character sheet and scripts, hex-by-hex layouts and linked tokens are available, etc.
As I have begun to prefer VTTs even when playing in-person my focus has shifted towards more crunchy/prep-heavy games such as Mythras and GURPS.
I have one simple question–do Magic Users get the spell Magic Missile? It seems to be missing from my copy of Mythras and I’d appreciate a more “gygaxian” spell list to use!
Yes, you can choose “Magic Missile” in Mythras Classic Fantasy. 😉🎲
SOLD!
Great review!
Like you I am always on the look out for new fantasy systems, forever in that quest for that sweet spot.
To that end I would like to ask a few questions:
1) Would this book work with Legend instead of RQ6/Mythras?
2) What if someone wanted to use it with a more nuanced sandbox setting (options,classes, not dungeon crawling only etc)
would it work or is it not modern enough?
3)what about AD&D second edition? Can it emulate that?
Thanks for your time and keep up the good work!
Interesting questions. I’ll take a stab, but they might be better directed to the forums at The Design Mechanism (given how new I am to the game): http://designmechanism.freeforums.org/index.php
1) Probably, with some work. But why not just grab the free Mythras Imperative and use Mythras?
2) Yes, sandboxing will work fine. That’s what I’m working towards. Mythras itself offers very flexible and nuanced gaming.
3) This emulates D&D1e + Unearthed Arcana. To my mind, 2e isn’t much different so I’d say yes. Classic Fantasy is emulating Race + Class + Gygaxian magic in that style of gaming, but with d100 mechanics.
Hope that helps.
Thank you!
1) will a QSR ever suffice?
Its that I have all the Legend books but none of the RQ6 ones
2) great 🙂
3) I guess with further supplements for classic fantasy or other d100 books you can mix and match to your hearts desire
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How does this edition of Classic Fantasy differ from the BRP Monograph #0383?
As I never owned the BRP monograph, I am not the one to ask. That said, I can refer you to the author’s reply in the Design Mechanism’s forum:
“Ok, where BRP Classic Fantasy was pretty much a player’s handbook, Mythras Classic Fantasy is a much more complete and refined product. It contains everything that was in the BRP version, but also loads of additional information, as well as monsters, and magic items. In addition, I never stopped refining Classic Fantasy after I finished the BRP version and the Mythras version benefits from another 6+ years of playtesting. On top of all of that, its just a beautiful product.”
ref: http://designmechanism.freeforums.org/design-classic-fantasy-vs-chaosium-classic-fantasy-t1528.html
Outstanding review!
The list of rpgs both fantasy and generic that I have tried out over the past 7 years in my fantasy campaign in pursuit of “the one” have been exhausting and exhaustive for my poor players.
Your post may have changed all that, but I’ve been here before so I’ll stay cautiously optimistic.
I will be digging into both Mythras and Classic Fantasy this weekend and seeing.
Side note, is Classic Fantasy covered by the TDM End User License? I am most curious.
Cheers!
I really don’t know about the End User License. Perhaps a post on the TDM forum would help?
I discovered today this game and it inspired me so much, i immediately ordered a copy and i am about to read it. It ignited in me some old -school feeling that i thought lost and forgotten, or at least- not easily obtainable at will.
Great write up! I really enjoyed your thoughts on the subject. To be honest, I initially was turned off by the classes, but as just juiced up careers they really do read as though they would work credibly well and I find myself wanting to play and run the system. Too bad my current group is absolutely married to D20 iterations right now.
Now, I search for scenarios or scenario conversions to satisfy my need to plan to use the system “just in case” I get the chance.
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Classic Fantasy to me is basically ‘taking D&D seriously’. Much like Dungeon Fantasy from GURPS it allows you to take the assumptions and tropes of the insular D&D fantasy world and explore ‘what would that actually be like?’. Instead of ignoring questions like social order, institutional affiliation, and how body armor actually works (or just winging it) you have a consistent, coherent and even somewhat realistic way to deal with these things already integrated into the system.
I am a big fan of the basic D&D gameplay, but it’s basically a war game. Any attempt to make it more than a war game essentially mutilates the system. To play in a D&D world that has a feeling of verisimilitude you have to abandon the hacked-together, detailess war-game rules and switch to another system entirely. Classic Fantasy (and Dungeon Fantasy) are the best treatments I’ve yet seen of this.
I am also influenced in this by the fact that I like gritty, realistic, pseudo-historical combat. I know enough about ancient and medieval warfare that normal D&D and movie-style combat is frustrating and inexplicable. I want to be able to actually use actual tactics and have them actually work the way they actually would. That’s essentially impossible in D&D, and the later editions make combat even more incoherent and unbelievable by turning it into Monty Python: Wuxia Edition. Mythras and GURPS have a built in base-level of realism that allows for heroic and fantastic elements and treats them with some basic respect for logic. What would it actually be like if old men could set fire to people by yelling at them in a strange language? D&D’s answer is ‘6d6 damage’, which may not actually involve touching a person since apparently taking 60 points of damage can involve absolutely no physical impairment whatsoever as long as you survive it. In Mythras you can have a character that’s just as iron-tough as a high-level elf, but you get credible, meaningful results when he gets hit by that fireball, even if he survives it.
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Hello UbiquitousRat,
first of all: thx for your blog post(s).
I’ve got a question: Do I need the complete Mythras Book to play Classic Fantasy or is the Mythras Imperativ version sufficient?
Thx and Cheers 🙂
Imperative is sufficient. Classic Fantasy only uses about half the rules from core Mythras.
I had a few sessions of the Odyssey of the Dragonlords campaign setting for 5th (its essentially Assassins Creed Odyssey meets D&D. Fantasy Ancient Greece) I liked what I saw but kept thinking how Mythras would have been a better fit for it mechanically.
I mean the base setting in the core book is Greek-esque and you can use Classic Fantasy for some of the more D&D-ish elements.
Have any people here experimented with that or something similar?
I haven’t – largely because I don’t pay a lot of attention to 5e products – but I am constantly thinking, “Wow, this is a cool setting for X game!” So, yes, I guess. I always feel that the rules and the world are separate: rules matter, but you can run any world with your chosen rules as long as you adapt what needs adapting.