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Basic Role-Playing
Basic Role-Playing (BRP) is a tabletop role-playing game derived from the RuneQuest fantasy role-playing game. Chaosium released the BRP standalone booklet in 1980 in the boxed set release of the second edition of RuneQuest. Greg Stafford and Lynn Willis are credited as the authors. Chaosium used the percentile skill-based system as the basis for most of their games, including Call of Cthulhu, Stormbringer, and Elfquest.
The core rules were written by Steve Perrin as part of his game RuneQuest. It was Greg Stafford's idea to simplify the rules (eliminating such mechanics as Strike Ranks and Hit Locations) and issue them in a 16-page booklet called Basic Role-Playing. Since the first BRP release, designers including Sandy Petersen, Lynn Willis, and Steve Henderson have contributed to the system.
The system was notable for being the first role-playing game system to introduce a full skill system to characters regardless of their profession. This was developed in RuneQuest but was also later adopted by the more skill-oriented Call of Cthulhu RPG.
BRP was conceived of as a generic system. Specific rule systems for support differing genres could be added to the core rules in a modular fashion. In order to underscore this, in 1982 Chaosium released the Worlds of Wonder box set, which contained a revised main booklet and several booklets providing the additional rules for playing in specific genres. The superhero-themed Superworld originated as part of this set. A third edition of the core booklet, now entitled Basic Roleplaying: The Chaosium System, was released in 2002.
In 2004, Chaosium began publishing the Basic Roleplaying monographs, a series of paperback booklets. The first four monographs (Players Book, Magic Book, Creatures Book, and Gamemaster Book) was the same as RuneQuest third Edition, but with trademarked elements removed, as Chaosium had lost the rights to the name but retained copyright to the rules text. Additional monographs allowing for new mechanics, thereby extending the system to other genres, were released in the following years. Many of these monographs reproduced rules from other Chaosium-published BRP games that had gone out of print.
Jason Durall and Sam Johnson gathered up previous works and updated them to a new edition. published in 2008. This comprehensive book, Basic Roleplaying: The Chaosium System was nicknamed the "Big Gold Book". It allowed game masters to build their own game out of the included subsystems. A quickstart booklet for new players accompanied it. In 2011, it was updated to a second edition.
In 2020, Chaosium released Basic Roleplaying in abbreviated form (vs. the 2008 edition) as a System Reference Document (SRD).
A new edition, updating the 2008/2011 editions and titled Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine, appeared in 2023, initially as a PDF, later as a hardbound book, and later still as a standalone SRD under the "ORC License" (Open RPG Creative) and has since spun off a market of multiple commercial products, both standalone BRP adventures and full-fledged RPGs, published under the terms of the ORC license. The full text (not the art, trade dress, etc.) of the PDF and print version was also ORC-licensed as a SRD.
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Basic Role-Playing
Basic Role-Playing (BRP) is a tabletop role-playing game derived from the RuneQuest fantasy role-playing game. Chaosium released the BRP standalone booklet in 1980 in the boxed set release of the second edition of RuneQuest. Greg Stafford and Lynn Willis are credited as the authors. Chaosium used the percentile skill-based system as the basis for most of their games, including Call of Cthulhu, Stormbringer, and Elfquest.
The core rules were written by Steve Perrin as part of his game RuneQuest. It was Greg Stafford's idea to simplify the rules (eliminating such mechanics as Strike Ranks and Hit Locations) and issue them in a 16-page booklet called Basic Role-Playing. Since the first BRP release, designers including Sandy Petersen, Lynn Willis, and Steve Henderson have contributed to the system.
The system was notable for being the first role-playing game system to introduce a full skill system to characters regardless of their profession. This was developed in RuneQuest but was also later adopted by the more skill-oriented Call of Cthulhu RPG.
BRP was conceived of as a generic system. Specific rule systems for support differing genres could be added to the core rules in a modular fashion. In order to underscore this, in 1982 Chaosium released the Worlds of Wonder box set, which contained a revised main booklet and several booklets providing the additional rules for playing in specific genres. The superhero-themed Superworld originated as part of this set. A third edition of the core booklet, now entitled Basic Roleplaying: The Chaosium System, was released in 2002.
In 2004, Chaosium began publishing the Basic Roleplaying monographs, a series of paperback booklets. The first four monographs (Players Book, Magic Book, Creatures Book, and Gamemaster Book) was the same as RuneQuest third Edition, but with trademarked elements removed, as Chaosium had lost the rights to the name but retained copyright to the rules text. Additional monographs allowing for new mechanics, thereby extending the system to other genres, were released in the following years. Many of these monographs reproduced rules from other Chaosium-published BRP games that had gone out of print.
Jason Durall and Sam Johnson gathered up previous works and updated them to a new edition. published in 2008. This comprehensive book, Basic Roleplaying: The Chaosium System was nicknamed the "Big Gold Book". It allowed game masters to build their own game out of the included subsystems. A quickstart booklet for new players accompanied it. In 2011, it was updated to a second edition.
In 2020, Chaosium released Basic Roleplaying in abbreviated form (vs. the 2008 edition) as a System Reference Document (SRD).
A new edition, updating the 2008/2011 editions and titled Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine, appeared in 2023, initially as a PDF, later as a hardbound book, and later still as a standalone SRD under the "ORC License" (Open RPG Creative) and has since spun off a market of multiple commercial products, both standalone BRP adventures and full-fledged RPGs, published under the terms of the ORC license. The full text (not the art, trade dress, etc.) of the PDF and print version was also ORC-licensed as a SRD.