Is basic roleplaying system/ stormbringer highfantasy or low fantasy??

[muminalver]

Hello fellow Brp-uge (Stormbringer, CoC) fans and users..

I was doing my own thinking with the system and listening to people chatting about High fantasy setting versus low fantasy settings on the YouTube..

And it kind of hit me.. is Brp and Stormbringer with its demon and elemental summoning, binding high fantasy or low??

I mean it's gives the players /Users powers, but at the same time is kind of rare?? It can give them ranged attacks or wierd powers, but they may need to feed a otherworldly entity som wierd needs stuff...

And a sorcerer using BRUges system are not pumping out super powerfull long range spells or are he?? 

As there's no levels a lot of the "high powers" are now in skill levels and planning, avoiding problems not soaking them up..

A wizard casting fire power would need to spend 3*5 = 15 magic points to get a 5d6 "fireball.." and then they would need to separate the dice on target(s)

So what do you think??

If you want to run "demon summoner who?" Or.. "summoner man and the guardians of castle pinkskull!!" (For the power of the pinkskull castle!!!!!)

Would you sell it as low or high fantasy/ wierd???

Is it magical gritty or not??

Or is the whole notion of high and low fantasy just a rarity of mystical stuff the players can do act with...

(D&d in a dungeon with only zero level npcs and fighters rogues)

[Susimetsa]

BRP can be both quite easily. Runequest is high fantasy: everyone has access to spells, gods and spirits are real and part of people's everyday lives etc. CoC has Cthulhu and other high fantasy elements, but you could play it as a very low fantasy as well. Also, you can easily use BRP to play a game in no-magic world (historical RPG) and it will not be fantasy at all.

[nyar72]

Although I have, sadly, never played Stormbringer (yet...!), I can recite all Elric novels by heart. Imo they're definitely examples of the sword & sorcery genre, which I've always associated with "high fantasy". Then again, I have no idea how Stormbringer might deviate from the books, so my opinion is to be taken with a grain of salt. 

[Atgxtg]

Yeah, it can vary. the core rules for BRP games, including the magic system(s),  have traditional been customized to fit each specific setting, so it comes down to setting.

And even when used in a High Fantasy setting, most BRP games aren't set in a typical high fantasy world. BRP grew out of RuneQuest, which was written for Greg Stafford world of Glorantha, and not some variation of Middle Earth. For instance, RQ is more mythic fantasy, Strombringer is Dark Fantasy, Call of Cthulhu is Man-Was-Not-Meant-to Know-Horror, and so on.

[smiorgan]

Many of the distinctions people use in talking about rpgs online are often modeled after D&D or colored by the experience of playing D&D, watching shows like Critical Role and the like. So, when people say "high fantasy" they actually think high-level post 3rd edition D&D and when they say "low fantasy", they actually think of low-level play in some OSR D&D retroclone.

And BRP games never fitted these categories very well. In Stormbringer your Melnibonean sorcerer could literally summon the Lords of Chaos upon the Earth, but a lowly Nadsorkorian beggar could still one-shot him with a lucky critical. Is this high fantasy? Of course it is - it's uber-fantastical. Is this the kind of high fantasy someone with a D&D mindset would expect? Surely not.

 

Edited November 11 by smiorgan

[Atgxtg]

Yes, opposite approaches to game design. D&D tends to change the setting to conform tot he existing D&D system, while BRP tends to adapt the existing BRP system to conform to the setting.

That's also why most settings for D&D feel and play the same, while ones for BRP can be very different.

Edited November 10 by Atgxtg
I can't type

[g33k]

13 hours ago, muminalver said:

Hello fellow Brp-uge (Stormbringer, CoC) fans and users..

I was doing my own thinking with the system and listening to people chatting about High fantasy setting versus low fantasy settings on the YouTube..

And it kind of hit me.. is Brp and Stormbringer with its demon and elemental summoning, binding high fantasy or low??

I mean it's gives the players /Users powers, but at the same time is kind of rare?? It can give them ranged attacks or wierd powers, but they may need to feed a otherworldly entity som wierd needs stuff...

And a sorcerer using BRUges system are not pumping out super powerfull long range spells or are he?? 

As there's no levels a lot of the "high powers" are now in skill levels and planning, avoiding problems not soaking them up..

A wizard casting fire power would need to spend 3*5 = 15 magic points to get a 5d6 "fireball.." and then they would need to separate the dice on target(s)

So what do you think??

If you want to run "demon summoner who?" Or.. "summoner man and the guardians of castle pinkskull!!" (For the power of the pinkskull castle!!!!!)

Would you sell it as low or high fantasy/ wierd???

Is it magical gritty or not??

Or is the whole notion of high and low fantasy just a rarity of mystical stuff the players can do act with...

(D&d in a dungeon with only zero level npcs and fighters rogues)

I think the "high fantasy / low fantasy" split isn't inherent to BRP.

It generally runs "gritty" in the sense of detailed skills &c, and dangerous combat.

But it can be low-magic with monsters (& other supernatural threats) being unusual or non-existent (which I think most would ID as "low fantasy") or it can pile on heaps of magic & supernatural trappings, borrowing further from power-ups in the Pulp Cthulhu and/or Superworld veins (this in turn being mostly ID'ed as "high fantasy").  There's a "Weird West" setting, Devil's Gulch, etc.

BRP is intentionally a broad system, not a narrowly-defined one.

[svensson]

BRUGE can be as High or Low fantasy as you like.

An example of high fantasy is RuneQuest. Lots of magic everywhere, everybody has at least some.

Low fantasy would probably be Call of Cthulhu in that only cultists regularly use magic and exposure to magic and/or otherworldly beings tends to damage the psyche [the Sanity, or SAN, stat] of anyone involved. Adventurers /Investigators tend to encounter more than your average citizen and even for them it's psychologically dangerous.

And then there is No Fantasy where you're using the BRUGE mechanics to play a sci-fi, modern, or historical game.

But the Basic Roleplay Universal Game Engine is equally adept at all of them. It's just a matter of the referee defining the campaign parameters. Personally, I find this system far more adaptable than, say, GURPS because there's much less ticky-tack fiddling going on. You don't have to worry about Advantages or Disadvantages, for example.

Edited November 14 by svensson

[tzunder]

18 hours ago, nyar72 said:

Although I have, sadly, never played Stormbringer (yet...!), I can recite all Elric novels by heart. Imo they're definitely examples of the sword & sorcery genre, which I've always associated with "high fantasy". Then again, I have no idea how Stormbringer might deviate from the books, so my opinion is to be taken with a grain of salt. 

I think Stormbringer and the Moorcock books associated are interesting in that they mix swords and sorcery, science fantasy, dark, and anti-heroes. Although they have mind blowing magic on one side and rumbling vehicles and technology on the other, I'd say they don't really tick the boxes that most people think of as 'high fantasy': elves, dwarves [or surrogates], twinkly magic available to most, clear definitions of morality. Moorcock's books never become 'sandals and sorcery', but there is a clear line of 'Anti-Conan' as well as 'Anti-Tolkien' in there -- quite deliberately -- that's why they are a great palate cleanser, albeit they also have a whole bunch of mid 20th century mindset in that might raise an eyebrow now.. for all MM's progressive anarchist credentials.

But BRP can be high fantasy.. and it's a very slight setting adjustment that would allow a game run with SB5 or Magic World or BRUGE to meet the high fantasy tropes,

 

[tzunder]

6 hours ago, g33k said:

It generally runs "gritty" in the sense of detailed skills &c, and dangerous combat.

Until you are a Melnibonean sorcerer commanding demons, a Troll Kyger Litor shaman sending out her spirits guardians of fear and madness, or a Runelord [RL] slicing down foes in blessed armour! 

I once described a RL vs RL combat as having 'verisimilitude' only for a friend to cut me to the quick by asking which planet I was from!

[Jason D]

In my opinion, Elric/Stormbringer (game and IP) is sword and sorcery and as a distinct genre, belongs on a separate axis from high vs low fantasy. 

There are very different tropes at work. 

• Low fantasy - characters are usually gritty street level, cynical and/or amoral ethos, little influence with the divine, magic is rare and untrustworthy, everything is shades of grey or black
• High fantasy - characters are socially diverse (nobles to peasants), clear right/wrong morality, strong divine influence, magic is predictable and knowable, and morality is very clear-cut 
• Sword and sorcery - socially diverse characters who are often external to society, morality is aligned with law/chaos vs. right/wrong, gods are active and even fightable, magic is dangerous and often considered the tool of cowards or tyrants  

[Jason D]

And as the line editor, it behooves me to say that BRP can do all three of these, depending on what optional rules you use. 🙂 

[Mugen]

As BRP is not really a system, but a framework upon which games are built, you can do whatever you want out of it.

A key factor to differenciate "low fantasy" and "high fantasy" (and I agree with @smiorgandefinitions) is character survivability.

A typical CoC character is frail, and his only access to better survivability is to buy big guns or (very rarely) powerful magic. But the former is forbiden by law, and the latter will eventually turn him mad.

In most "medieval" BRP variants, it's possible to go from Zero to Hero with magic. Examples have been given of RuneQuest "rune level" characters that have survivability far beyond a RQ2 or RQ3 farmer. And Melnibonéan Warrior-Priests-Sorcerers are at "(anti-)hero" level ar character creation.

It's very rare, though, to see a BRP variant where characters can achieve such survivability without magic or any sorts of supernatural powers. Even if you add options to make PCs inherently superior to NPCs, "warrior types" pale in comparison to D&D fighters.

[Atgxtg]

3 hours ago, Jason D said:

And as the line editor, it behooves me to say that BRP can do all three of these, depending on what optional rules you use. 🙂 

Well, pretty much any RPG can. It's just that it is easier to pull off in some games and some games will give you better results than others. Plus by now there are more options to cover something so you don't have to adapt things if you don't wan't to.. I mean, running a High fantasy campaign using Boot Hill would take some work, but it could be done. I think there are campaign books for various genres/styles for all of the major RPGs. I also think the various generic RPGs of the 80s (HERO, GURPS, and in the case of BRP, Worlds of Wonder) opened that door up. 

I believe BRP's advantage in this sort of thing is that the rules aren't so geared towards one particular genre so it usually doesn't need as much work to adapt. Probably because of the mixed styles of the original RuneQuest. A somewhat dark & gritty game system blended with a high magic, myth based setting. It may well be that RQ "not really being a good fit for Glonatha" is what kept it so adaptable. 

 

 

[Ravenheart87]

3 hours ago, Mugen said:

A typical CoC character is frail, and his only access to better survivability is to buy big guns or (very rarely) powerful magic. But the former is forbiden by law, and the latter will eventually turn him mad.

Big guns? We always went with dynamites and gasoline.

[svensson]

1 hour ago, Ravenheart87 said:

Big guns? We always went with dynamites and gasoline.

And in my CoC games the firearm of choice was the shotgun... legal damned near everywhere. Sure, it doesn't have a lot of rounds, but it DOES have 4d6 damage. And that's important when you're trying to penetrate some of the Mythos' damage resistance.

And also, I advise any CoC referee to do some reading into the local laws for firearms wherever your campaign is set. And remember that there is a BIG difference between 'legal' and 'available'! For example, in Germany of the 20s there were organized armed militias called 'Freikorps' and an active Bolshevik insurgency going on. Hand grenades and SMGs were illegal as Hell, but it wasn't hard to get your hands on them...

[svensson]

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Well, pretty much any RPG can. It's just that it is easier to pull off in some games and some games will give you better results than others. Plus by now there are more options to cover something so you don't have to adapt things if you don't wan't to.. I mean, running a High fantasy campaign using Boot Hill would take some work, but it could be done. I think there are campaign books for various genres/styles for all of the major RPGs. I also think the various generic RPGs of the 80s (HERO, GURPS, and in the case of BRP, Worlds of Wonder) opened that door up. 

I believe BRP's advantage in this sort of thing is that the rules aren't so geared towards one particular genre so it usually doesn't need as much work to adapt. Probably because of the mixed styles of the original RuneQuest. A somewhat dark & gritty game system blended with a high magic, myth based setting. It may well be that RQ "not really being a good fit for Glonatha" is what kept it so adaptable. 

 

 

I definitely agree with BRUGE's adaptability, but I will say that it's FAR easier to adapt a no-character-class system of mechanics like d100 than it is a d20 style system.

 

[Zit]

20 minutes ago, svensson said:

Hand grenades and SMGs were illegal as Hell, but it wasn't hard to get your hands on them...

My grand-father came back from the WW1 where he served as zouave with perfectly functional Parabellum and Mauser as souvenirs. I guess he was not the only one 😁.

[Atgxtg]

2 hours ago, svensson said:

I definitely agree with BRUGE's adaptability, but I will say that it's FAR easier to adapt a no-character-class system of mechanics like d100 than it is a d20 style system.

 

Yes, you can see it in the various franchises that get adapted to D&D. To write up Obi-won Kenobi or Conan you need to figure out what class/classes/sub-classes they are, and what level, and then select skills, traits, feats, abilities within the limits allowed. All of which can be rather subjective, and also has a huge impact on how the character plays.  If someone is good at one thing then they often have to be high level, to be able to be good at it, which automatically makes them good at lots of other things. So if someone is, say, a 20th level physician, then they automatically have a lot of hit points and can  fight with the same base attack bonus of a 10th level fighter. 

In BRP all you need to worry about is what said character can do. Someone can have Medicine and First Aid at 120% and still bot be able to shoot straight. You don't need to worry about a bunch of game stuff that they should have because of their level, but don't have in the source material.  It makes BRP much easier to work with BRP.

 

[nyar72]

10 hours ago, tzunder said:

I think Stormbringer and the Moorcock books associated are interesting in that they mix swords and sorcery, science fantasy, dark, and anti-heroes. Although they have mind blowing magic on one side and rumbling vehicles and technology on the other, I'd say they don't really tick the boxes that most people think of as 'high fantasy': elves, dwarves [or surrogates], twinkly magic available to most, clear definitions of morality. Moorcock's books never become 'sandals and sorcery', but there is a clear line of 'Anti-Conan' as well as 'Anti-Tolkien' in there -- quite deliberately -- that's why they are a great palate cleanser, albeit they also have a whole bunch of mid 20th century mindset in that might raise an eyebrow now.. for all MM's progressive anarchist credentials.

 

Again, can't speak for the game. I agree, he covers a lot of different genres and subgenres, but imo they don't always mix science fantasy and sword & sorcery. Elric novels have a distinctly magical approach (chaos god summons, elemental lords, in the later books the dream stuff). The Corum books are equally magical and fantastic. I'd argue that of the three "big" Eternal Champions, only Hawkmoon really deals with elements of science fantasy, what with the entire post-apocalyptic setting. Of course, if we consider the entire range of EC and EC-adjacent books and stories we'll go through a lot of other genres and styles (steampunk, picaresque, scifi, alternative history, parody, ...). 

As for the eyebrow raising stuff, you're definitely right. I recently tried to get a young friend (25) into Moorcock, but she quickly drafted a list of complaints. I can totally see them and agree, but alas - my nostalgia just wafts over me like some unholy incense to honour the Lord of the Seven Darks. (Besides for the whole Fireclown at the End of Time thing, that was just excruciatingly bad and wrong for so many reasons... ><).

In regards to what constitues "high fantasy", it's interesting that there's many different interpretations of what that entails! To me, "high fantasy" just means that the world is clearly fantastical, that magic and/or its effects are relatively prominent, and that it's about (more or less) epic stuff. It might possibly heretical of me, but I would also put Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories in that category.

On 11/10/2024 at 4:22 PM, smiorgan said:

Many of the distinctions people use in talking about rpgs online are often modeled after D&D or colored by the experience of playing D&D, watching shows like Critical Role and the like. So, when people say "high fantasy" they actually think high-level post 3rd edition D&D and when they say "low fantasy", they actually think of low-level play in some OSR D&D retroclone.

And BRP games never fitted these categories very well. In Stormbringer your Melnibonean sorcerer could literally summon the Lords of Chaos upon the Earth, but a lowly Nadsorkorian beggar could still one-shot him with a lucky critical. Is this high fantasy? Of course it is - it's uber-fantastical. Is this the kind of high fantasy someone with a D&D mindset would expect? Surely not.

 

100% agreed, Count Smiorgan. There's definitely a difference in genre expectations based on how & when people got into reading/gaming. 

5 hours ago, Ravenheart87 said:

Big guns? We always went with dynamites and gasoline.

Our Keeper has decided that nobody will sell dynamite to us anymore. Luckily I have rifles. 

[Susimetsa]

20 hours ago, Jason D said:

In my opinion, Elric/Stormbringer (game and IP) is sword and sorcery and as a distinct genre, belongs on a separate axis from high vs low fantasy. 

There are very different tropes at work. 

• Low fantasy - characters are usually gritty street level, cynical and/or amoral ethos, little influence with the divine, magic is rare and untrustworthy, everything is shades of grey or black
• High fantasy - characters are socially diverse (nobles to peasants), clear right/wrong morality, strong divine influence, magic is predictable and knowable, and morality is very clear-cut 
• Sword and sorcery - socially diverse characters who are often external to society, morality is aligned with law/chaos vs. right/wrong, gods are active and even fightable, magic is dangerous and often considered the tool of cowards or tyrants  

I think that categorisation is a bit too sweeping and doesn't really work for works like Guy Gavriel Kay's fantasy novels (such as Lions of Al-Rassan) which are clearly fantasy variants of real world history, but with a tiny dash of magic. Hence, they should be categorised as low fantasy, but they are in no way "gritty" or "street level" or "amoral" etc. That is, gritty and dark is not a necessary aspect of low fantasy.

 

[Atgxtg]

I usually consider high/low fantasy in terms of the amount of magic in the setting and the scale of the story. I think mortality/grittiness, etc. aren't really part of the definition. I think that gritty, cynical/amoral ethos, etc. tends to be more common in low fantasy simply because pre-industrial societies tend to be tougher to get by in, but lots of magic tends to offset that.So many low level magic spells in fantasy would revolutionize a medieval world. Just offsetting the famine every third year or so would result in a might more optimistic society. 

But I don't think that makes those elements necessary to the genre. It's just that most High Fantasy settings tend to be heavily influenced by Tolkien and the writers consciously try to make them more like Middle Earth. The Shire is more of a wistful nostalgic look at pre/low industrial British country life, rather than actual pre/low industrial British country life, and so everything is wonderful, and there is enough food to have six meals a day. Tolkien is wishing to go back to a simpler time that never existed.

You get the same sort of thing in most children's stories, because most writers are adults who are looking back fondly on their own childhood as a carefree, less stressful time. But that's because they didn't have the worries they have today in their childhood. They forgot, or choose to forget all the troubles and stresses that they had as a child as they seem unimportant to them as an adult. But those things were very important to them at the time. 

[sladethesniper]

Hmmm, IMO, the fantasy level is dependent on how much and how prevalent "magic" is. Tolkien, magic is known, but rarely seen but is often considered High Fantasy, but never really "feels" that way to me. World of Darkness, magic is unknown and almost never seen except by those already in the supernatural world, but as a mage, almost everything IS magic in some form, so it is low fantasy for everyone except for mages who exist in a high fantasy reality. Forgotten Realms the setting magic is known, and magic is expensive, but available and thus considered High Fantasy. D&D the GAME, magic is everywhere and PCs have tons of the stuff dripping off of them and is stupid level magic. Star Wars, magic is rumored, and rarely seen and is Low Fantasy even with dudes in the EU gobbling all life on a planet, or making black holes.

Thus, for me, BRP as a rules set can do either, and Stormbringer is a high fantasy setting using BRP.

Lethality is another measure, and many games have an intentionally low lethality (or plot armor) for PCs. That low lethality often helps in creating that "high fantasy" feeling, so when high lethality (like BRP) meets high magic (like in Moorcock) it leaves some people feeling kinda weird when magic is going off everywhere and people are dying (unlike say as in Harry Potter, a very low lethality, high magic setting).

-STS

[Apostrophe]

On 11/11/2024 at 10:39 AM, Jason D said:

In my opinion, Elric/Stormbringer (game and IP) is sword and sorcery and as a distinct genre, belongs on a separate axis from high vs low fantasy. 

There are very different tropes at work. 

• Low fantasy - characters are usually gritty street level, cynical and/or amoral ethos, little influence with the divine, magic is rare and untrustworthy, everything is shades of grey or black
• High fantasy - characters are socially diverse (nobles to peasants), clear right/wrong morality, strong divine influence, magic is predictable and knowable, and morality is very clear-cut 
• Sword and sorcery - socially diverse characters who are often external to society, morality is aligned with law/chaos vs. right/wrong, gods are active and even fightable, magic is dangerous and often considered the tool of cowards or tyrants  

There are plenty of examples of low-fantasy (as in magic is rare and/or not really impactful) books where protagonists/major cultures don't fit that description. I always thought about high/low fantasy as a broad indicator of the impact of magic in the world, how far real-world physics can be manipulated by magic, and how widespread it is.

Obviously, we are both wrong since most publishers and book critics put Howard, Moorcock, Tolkien, and Martin in high fantasy. I think these terms only have real meaning in RPG communities and, judging by the comments here, vary greatly in definition. A lot of people define high fantasy as entirely fictional and original worlds with their own history, and low fantasy as an alternative version of Earth with some magic.

[Atgxtg]

6 hours ago, Apostrophe said:

There are plenty of examples of low-fantasy (as in magic is rare and/or not really impactful) books where protagonists/major cultures don't fit that description. I always thought about high/low fantasy as a broad indicator of the impact of magic in the world, how far real-world physics can be manipulated by magic, and how widespread it is.

Yes, because those are easier worlds to set up. Te author only needs worry about how a few minor magics could impact the world, as opposed to dealing with the magical equivalent of the industrial revolution that would accompany a high magic setting. 

 

6 hours ago, Apostrophe said:

Obviously, we are both wrong since most publishers and book critics put Howard, Moorcock, Tolkien, and Martin in high fantasy. I think these terms only have real meaning in RPG communities and, judging by the comments here, vary greatly in definition. A lot of people define high fantasy as entirely fictional and original worlds with their own history, and low fantasy as an alternative version of Earth with some magic.

The terms have meaning in fantasy fiction too, after all that is where the terms originated. The original purpose of the classification was to sub divide fantasy fiction, which encompassed practically everything that wasn't real world based, so that readers could find more of the stuff that the liked. Just like how Science Fiction (originally Scientific Romances) can be subdivided into hard sci-fi, space opera, and so on. 

The terms get used a lot in RPG communities because RPGs are a form on interactive fiction and is adopting the same terms, genres, and subgrenes of writing to accomplish the same thing: letting people find more of what they like and/or avoid things they don't like. That's important so that gamers have an idea of what a game is going to be like and if it is a good fit for them. Plus it helps GMs with adventure and campaign planning since each sub-genre has a list of tropes that are and are not appropriate for them, and sticking to those lists will help give those games the proper feel. Hence you don't have Gandalf suggesting they bulldoze Bag-End to put in a strip mall. That's not something a "good" character would suggest in a Tolkien novel. 

And ultimately the genres are more tools and guidelines than hard and fast rules, and the definitions can be altered if something particularity groundbreaking comes out that doesn't follow the existing rules. Star Wars might be considered a High Fantasy story with Sci-fi trappings.