If you’ve read many of my reviews, you probably already know that I got my start in the hobby when my father introduced me to Chaosium‘s Basic Roleplaying (BRP) through the old boxed set Worlds of Wonder.  This would have been somewhere around 1987 or 88, I think.  It was my go-to game for years, and even now, when I introduce people to the hobby, I tend to do so by running a one-shot of Call of Cthulhu, which uses the BRP rules.  I’ve also mentioned before that had I started with D&D, I strongly suspect that I’d have bounced off the hobby, and there’s a part of me that believes a lot of people probably have done just that over the years.  Folks who may very well have found a lifetime of fun with tabletop RPGs, but who simply don’t click with what has long been the game synonymous with the hobby.

It is unclear if this is considered a new edition, and if it is, what numbered edition it might be (3rd maybe?), but it’s the version published in 2023.  I never picked up the version known as the “Gold Book,” so I don’t know what changes have been made.  I suspect they’re not especially significant, as the BRP rules haven’t changed drastically in nearly 50 years since they debuted in RuneQuest.  What is different from the version I’m used to, the one published in Worlds of Wonder back in 1982, is in the quantity of options.  Where that original book was a simple, stripped down system presented in 16 pages, this is a more than 250 page toolbox.  I think this is both a positive and a negative.

On the (maybe) negative side, this really is a toolbox more than a clearly presented RPG basic book.  You get the basic rules, but then you get options upon options that you might want to include in your game.  I can’t imagine reading this book cold and coming away feeling like you’re ready to run a game.  Instead, if you have an idea for a setting or a game you might want to run, you can comb through this book for the bits and pieces of mechanics that will help you build the game you want.  I’m familiar with the system.  I’ve run multiple variations of BRP over the years.  Yet, I still found myself somewhat overwhelmed by this volume.  I find myself wanting to print the book out, cut up each rule option and chart, and laminate them.  Then just pull them out and assemble the rules I need for a given game.  In a sense, this book is more of a game designer’s resource.  I suppose that’s tied into the ORC license that this was released under.  That’s a whole legal thing that is beyond both my knowledge and my interest.  So, if you’re looking to use BRP to build a game, do your research.

I very much wish there was a concise version of the system right at the beginning of the book.  Essentially a cleaned up version of the original booklet.  That material is in here, but you’ve got to sift through a massive amount of detail and specifics.  I can’t imagine there’d be a lot of money in it, but I’d love to see a Basic Roleplaying Starter Set, like what Chaosium has done with Pendragon, Call of Cthulhu, and RuneQuest.  Have just the stripped down basic rules, then maybe a guide to adapting it to settings, and then maybe a book with three or four mini-settings.  That would be nice.  Again, I don’t expect them to do it, as I don’t know that it would make much money.  But gosh, it’d be swell. 

With that out of the way, let’s move on to the good.

The book is subtitled “Universal Game Engine.”  I don’t believe in a universal game.  When you try to be all things to all people, you tend not to be good at anything and bad at everything.  This has always been my problem with GURPS.  It’s functional for a lot of things.  But it’s not actually very good at anything.  Worse is when people take a game that is made for one specific sort of thing, like Dungeons & Dragons, and try to make it work for a whole bunch of things it’s really bad at (see the D20 craze of the early 2000s, especially the D20 version of Call of Cthulhu).  All that said, I’ve always felt that Basic Roleplaying is about as close to a universal system as you could get.  The only other one that jumps to mind is WaRP, the mechanic at the heart of Over The Edge 2nd Ed, which I know I’ve mentioned here more than once.  Is BRP good for everything?  No.  There are definitely types of games I wouldn’t use it for.  Styles of play.  Maybe even whole genres.  For example, I would not use it for Superheroic Fantasy like what D&D 5e seems to be going for.  In fact, I might not use it for a lot of Superhero games generally, unless you were going for some of the more grounded or gritty styles.  Characters are generally a bit too squishy for a big Invincible VS Ultraman fight.

What it is good for is anything from History to “Grimdark” fantasy; from the “blue collar” Science Fiction of Outland to the super science of Foundation. It’s good for Westerns and Cosmic Horror.  It’s good for Slice of Life and Espionage.  Countless times I’ve read RPGs with amazing settings but systems that left me scratching my head.  When that happens, I almost always fall back on BRP.  GDW’s 2300AD or Space 1889 may technically be “playable” as written, but I couldn’t make heads nor tails of them.  BRP would be perfect.  I ran Fading Suns and The Babylon Project back in the 90s, and if I ever revisited either, it would be with BRP.  I’ve wanted to run a game of Skyrealms of Jorune since I saw the 1st edition on the shelf at a local game store before I was really into the hobby, but having read the Chessex edition that was available when I had money to pick it up, there’s no way I’d run that.  BRP though?  Absolutely.  I’ve kicked around running something in Philip Reeve’s Mortal Engines setting, as well as Hellboy, and Warhammer 40,000.  All of which would work really well (I know the latter two have their own RPGs, though I haven’t looked at them). 

I never want to be locked into just one game, but if I had to pick only one.  If I had no other option, then BRP would be it.  That’s why I’ve often said that Call of Cthulhu would be my “desert island roleplaying game.”  Not so much because I’d never want to run anything but Cosmic Horror, but because using its core mechanics, the BRP at its heart, I could run all sorts of games for the rest of my life. 

Let me get a little more specific with what you get.  The introduction covers some general stuff about “what is a roleplaying game?,” various terms and concepts, as well as a brief history of BRP.  Then we move into character creation, and right off the bat, you’re presented with options.  What “scale” of game do you want to play?  Normal, heroic, epic, or superhuman.  As I mentioned above, I don’t think BRP is good at capturing the kind of thing that 5e does.  You’re never going to wade thoughtlessly through armies of screaming goblins, because they literally can’t hurt you.  Still, there’s potential to play some very powerful characters, if that’s your thing.  Likely more of a James Bond, Conan, or even Green Lantern, as opposed to a Dr. Manhattan or Gandalf.  That’s just the beginning of the choices.  Which dials and levers do you want to use?  Roll for statistics, or point buy?  Hit locations?  Fatigue or Sanity?  Lots of choices, and they depend on the sort of game you want to play.  While reading the book, I was thinking about how I might build a swashbuckling game, using hit locations as well as some more complicated melee combat options that appear later in the book.

(Something I guess I should note, due to a certain controversy around the (time of writing) recent release of D&D 2024’s monster book, is that due to the way “creatures” are handled in BRP, and because there is no assumed morality, you don’t have to do any fancy retooling to make almost anything a player character. Orcs? Giants? Angels? No problem. They all work the same way. It’s just up to you and your table which ones are available to play. Nothing in the mechanics of the game will stop you.)

Chapters that follow are set up in a similar way to Character Creation.  The core subject is presented, and then all sorts of options you can choose to add or not.  Chapter 4 is a slight outlier in that the whole chapter is covering an optional rule.  Powers.  Do you want psionics, super powers, or magic?  Then this is the chapter for that, and there are lots of options for how to use those powers.  But if you’re running a non-supernatural game, then you can just move on to the next chapter.

Chapter 5 covers the system itself.  This is a design and organization debate that has a lot of folks on different sides.  Personally, I prefer to have the system rules right at the start, and then the character generation rules.  I don’t know if I’m in the minority in that, but certainly, I see a lot of books that begin with character creation, as this one does.

My favorite chapter may be Chapter 7, Spot Rules.  It’s full of extremely useful suggestions for handling the kinds of situations that might come up, but don’t really fall under any particular rule.  Stuff like drowning, or getting a disease, or pulling your punches.  Practical stuff that you’re likely to run into in a game, but might never think about before they happen.  I’m all for the “rulings over rules” idea, but it’s also helpful to read these things and just have them rolling around in the back of your mind when you’re running a game.  I’d love to see more games have a chapter like this.

The art throughout the book is excellent and varied. There are a bunch of individual images that do exactly what RPG art should do, fill my brain with ideas and possibilities. Really solid work. I also like that it’s printed on matte paper, not glossy. So much easier on these old eyes.

I guess I should wrap things up.  First, I’ll say that Basic Roleplaying is a phenomenal starting RPG, that I suspect a lot of folks would find a heck of a lot more intuitive than the elephant in the room (I normally find the only folks who have difficulty adjusting to it are those who are coming to it from D&D and D&D-adjacent games).  However, I don’t think this book in particular is beginner friendly.  If I had picked this volume up back in the 80s, I’d probably have felt like I was drawing by the third chapter, trying to keep track of what I needed and what was optional, and trying to figure out what it all might mean at the table.  If you are a game designer, or someone with experience in the hobby who is disillusioned with D&D and its various shades, BRP has a lot to offer.  It might be easier to approach it through one of its other versions, however.  Like one of the games with a starter set, as mentioned above.  Ease your way in, and then, once you’ve had a chance to see it in practice, grab this book and build your own.

Finally, two technical complaints.  First, the physical copy of the book that I have does not feel like it’s going to hold up to decades of use.  Perhaps I’m wrong, but it doesn’t feel like the book is especially well attached to the cover, and every time I open it, it makes cracking noises that make me think the pages are going to start falling out.  It feels flimsy.  Is it?  Ask me again in a couple years.  Second, while there are a couple variations of character sheets in the book, as well as a couple available on Chaosium’s website, due to the nature of the game and its modularity, I wish there were some sort of “build your own” resource on the website, where I could copy and paste the assets I need for my specific game, and then download & print the sheets. It’s possible that there’s something out there I’ve missed, but I haven’t been able to find anything.  I’m not a computer guy or a graphic designer, nor do I have any particular skills with such programs.  Maybe it’s something that’s easy for folks to do.  But I don’t really have the skill, and it’s something I’d love to see.  

Do I think you should have this game on your shelf?  Yes.  Absolutely.  Basic Roleplaying is one of the very best, and anyone interested in game design should have it as a resource to draw upon. 

If you like what I do, you can buy me a coffee. Check out my Facebook, YouTube, or Goodreads.  And take a look at my Patreon page, where I’m working on a novel and developing a tabletop RPG setting. I’m proud to be an affiliate of DriveThru RPG. I’m an independent author. You can also read my fiction over on Amazon. A rating & review would make a world of difference. I now have an Amazon Wishlist.