Original BRP

[Shenron]

I know that when either CoC or BRP was originally released it was like a 20 page booklet. 

I have contacted Chaosium directly and they dont have any physical copies and claimed there is no digital file of it as well.

Does anyone have a copy?

[Richard S.]

I dunno if this is the same stuff as the booklet but there's this: https://web.archive.org/web/20020621235802/http://www.basicrps.com:80/core/index.html

[simonh]

5 hours ago, Richard S. said:

I dunno if this is the same stuff as the booklet but there's this: https://web.archive.org/web/20020621235802/http://www.basicrps.com:80/core/index.html

It does look spookily familiar. I seem to remember the original booklet had an example of play in a sidebar where a character with a spear is fighting a bear. Maybe that was an illustration though. It was a long time ago.

 

[Atgxtg]

It was a 16 page booklet that, among other things had a fight with a bear in it (with illustration). The Booklet was included in the RQ2 boxed set, early editions of CoC and the Worlds of Wonder Boxed Set, and, I think for a time, sold separately.  With and without various covers. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Role-Playing

Amazon still has a  copy for sale: https://www.amazon.com/Basic-role-playing-introductory-guide/dp/B0006YXPSY/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1530257872&sr=1-4&keywords=basic+roleplaying+greg+stafford

And at a premium price ($25!)

You could also get one t you get one of the boxed sets I mentioned above, but be prepared to shell out some cash. Apparently the old Chaosium stuff is fetching top dollar on eBay. 

 

Oh, and if there was something specific you wanted to know about it, I have the book and could look something up for you. 

Edited June 29, 2018 by Atgxtg

[NickMiddleton]

7 hours ago, Shenron said:

I know that when either CoC or BRP was originally released it was like a 20 page booklet. 

I have contacted Chaosium directly and they dont have any physical copies and claimed there is no digital file of it as well.

Does anyone have a copy?

Several - it was included in various boxed Chaoisium games in the late 1970’s / early 1980’s and reissued in the early 2000’s (in b&w cover, tape bound monograph era) as well iirc.

7 hours ago, Richard S. said:

I dunno if this is the same stuff as the booklet but there's this: https://web.archive.org/web/20020621235802/http://www.basicrps.com:80/core/index.html

Ah, basicrps.com, in all it’s copyright defying glory... fairly sure that _is_ the text of the booklet, or at least closely adapted from it, but I haven’t done a line by line comparison.

In addition to the games Atgxtg mentioned I’m pretty sure it was also in the Elfquest, Stormbringer and Hawkmoon boxed sets, and possibly Ringworld. It was also included in the “... Paths” boxed sets. There was a point when the pamphlet was common, and relatively inexpensive, on eBay. Alas, the collectors seem have moved in with a vengeance.

slightly surprised there isn’t a PDF available from Chaosium tbh.

Nick

[seneschal]

If you get the electronic versions of either the BRP QuickStart or GORE you get a 40-page (ish) breakdown of the rules, for free.

(Checking ....)

Looks like the QuickStart is free.  The electronic version of GORE seems to have vanished but a hard copy is about $7.

Edited June 29, 2018 by seneschal

[NickMiddleton]

Note that the BRP QuickStart contains both basic rules, some spot rules, and the balance is made up of multiple short scenarios in various different genres / styles (of which I wrote 2).

cheers,

Nick

[simonh]

1 hour ago, seneschal said:

Looks like the QuickStart is free.  The electronic version of GORE seems to have vanished but a hard copy is about $7.

It looks like there's a copy in the files section, along with a whole bunch of related stuff over here.

[Shenron]

I appreciate all of the help. 

I am really interested in it becuase I wanted to see the base game and idea before it explosed into the BRP and other game lines. 

25 bucks is steep for a 16 pg booklet.

[Atgxtg]

6 hours ago, NickMiddleton said:

It was also included in the “... Paths” boxed sets.

I forgot about Fantasy Paths, etc. I used to have those. I bought them for the tiles and was pleasant surprised when it came with BRP, an expansion that gave monster stats and rules for magic, and monster counters. 

6 hours ago, NickMiddleton said:

slightly surprised there isn’t a PDF available from Chaosium tbh.

I'm not. They were selling a version of the RQ3 rules as a monograph under the title BRP, and then the Big Gold Book. 

[Shenron]

I wish they would bring it back or the monograph. 

[Toadmaster]

10 minutes ago, Shenron said:

I appreciate all of the help. 

I am really interested in it becuase I wanted to see the base game and idea before it explosed into the BRP and other game lines. 

25 bucks is steep for a 16 pg booklet.

 

My understanding is RQ came first and was followed with BRP. It with RQ in the boxed set along with Apple Lane. I don't know if early RQ was available as just a book. Somewhere I've got that original copy, which as I recall was all paper including the cover.

I bought a copy during the short period where it was sold as a stand alone booklet. I think this was done after Deluxe BRP was delayed repeatedly in the early 2000s. That version has a normal cardstock cover. The one on Amazon isn't really that outrageously priced, I wouldn't pay $25 for it, but when sold alone it was $10-15 as I recall, but I could be grossly inflating the price, $5-10 seems more reasonable for what you get.

  

[g33k]

1 hour ago, Shenron said:

I wish they would bring it back or the monograph. 

The very-very first was RQ1, closely followed by RQ2/RQClassic; each was a softcover standalone book (boxed editions came later).  RQ2 was essentially a fixed/updated RQ1... There weren't really any major changes AFAIK/IIRC.

RQ1 (and RQClassic) are available in PDF from Chaosium.

RQ was later stripped-down to the BRP booklet.

Edited June 29, 2018 by g33k

[g33k]

I guess an argument could also be made for The Perrin Conventions (a small suite of alterations/interpretations/clarifications & new rules for D&D) being the VERY very-very first ...

Foundational ideas from which RQ evolved, which in turn BRP'ed...

But that's going deep into philosophy of game-design, back before The Forge existed. 😋

Edited June 29, 2018 by g33k

[Atgxtg]

3 hours ago, Shenron said:

I appreciate all of the help. 

I am really interested in it becuase I wanted to see the base game and idea before it explosed into the BRP and other game lines. 

25 bucks is steep for a 16 pg booklet.

In that case go get the new BRP Quickstart and/or the new RuneQuest Quickstart. Both are free at Drivethru (and Chasoium too I believe) and will give you some ideas of the base game. The original BRP was actually culled from the RuneQuest, so technically RuneQuest was the base game.

[soltakss]

Mt RQ2 box fell apart years ago. Although I still have the battered RQ2 rulesbook and Apple Lane book, I don't think I bothered keeping the BRP Booklet. Would anyone have scanned it? I am not sure.

When I read it, I thought "This is just a watered down version of RuneQuest, why would anyone bother playing it?".

[Toadmaster]

26 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Mt RQ2 box fell apart years ago. Although I still have the battered RQ2 rulesbook and Apple Lane book, I don't think I bothered keeping the BRP Booklet. Would anyone have scanned it? I am not sure.

When I read it, I thought "This is just a watered down version of RuneQuest, why would anyone bother playing it?".

 

I had the same reaction. I bought the later BRP reprint largely out of curiosity as I had drifted away from BRP so most of my books were packed away. Chaosium was at that time 99% CoC but there were rampant rumors of a new BRP deluxe and I had the $10-15 burning a hole in my pocket. I wasn't all that impressed with it the second time around either.  

It is fine as a rule set or an intro, but is so striped down compared to any of the games that there is little use for it unless you don't own any other BRP based games. 

[Richard S.]

I think the purpose of the core brp rules was to be combined with setting/genre packs like in worlds of wonder. It wasn't a full game by itself, unless you wanted a really minimalist game, but combined with something like Magic World or Future World it was pretty good.

[Zit]

It would be very nice from Chaosium if they removed the copyright on it and allowed the free reproduction and diffusion of this booklet, which I fortunately have. It is part of role playing story now.

Edited June 29, 2018 by Zit

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

When I read it, I thought "This is just a watered down version of RuneQuest, why would anyone bother playing it?".

According to Greg Stafford they wrote BRP primarily to show people who played their games how they all used to the system and if you know how to play one, you could play the others easily enough. He said that it really didn't work because their fans were already aware of that. 

I think the book, was a good intro read for a new player or GM, and combined with one of the "...Paths" boxed sets could serve and an intro RPG. IMO as good, as any of the newer Quickstarts out there now, if not better. 

[Toadmaster]

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

According to Greg Stafford they wrote BRP primarily to show people who played their games how they all used to the system and if you know how to play one, you could play the others easily enough. He said that it really didn't work because their fans were already aware of that. 

I think the book, was a good intro read for a new player or GM, and combined with one of the "...Paths" boxed sets could serve and an intro RPG. IMO as good, as any of the newer Quickstarts out there now, if not better. 

 I could very easily see it being something a GM could give to a player pre-game to read through to learn the basic rules, or even run off copies of for players who didn't own the core game book (not that anyone ever made illegal copies of game books at Krishna copies... 😉 ). 

 

That was long before -'lite / quickstart rules, these days they would probably give permission to make copies of it for personal use to help spread the game. I would guess the fact it isn't available as a free pdf is either an oversight or mixed up with the convoluted ownership of RQ (Chaosium, AH, Mongoose, Chaosium again). 

[SDLeary]

14 hours ago, NickMiddleton said:

In addition to the games Atgxtg mentioned I’m pretty sure it was also in the Elfquest, Stormbringer and Hawkmoon boxed sets, and possibly Ringworld. It was also included in the “... Paths” boxed sets. There was a point when the pamphlet was common, and relatively inexpensive, on eBay. Alas, the collectors seem have moved in with a vengeance.

Sadly it was NOT in Ringworld, nor my old boxed Stormbringer. Not sure of Elfquest (never a fan) and Hawkmoon (died and discarded long ago).

SDLeary

[SDLeary]

7 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

I'm not. They were selling a version of the RQ3 rules as a monograph under the title BRP, and then the Big Gold Book. 

Yes... and I'm seriously perturbed that when the BGB came out, that what would amount to the Players Book vanished, yet the Monsters and the GMs book remained, and still remain, in electronic form.

SDLeary

[Richard S.]

2 hours ago, Zit said:

It would be very nice from Chaosium if they removed the copyright on it and allowed the free reproduction and diffusion of this booklet, which I fortunately have. It is part of role playing story now.

That would be neat, though I don't think there's much to the original brp that's different than what's in the current quickstart, besides less skills and higher starting percentages that is. In fact, I doubt Chaosium would have much of an issue if someone did trim down the quick start rules into what was in the original and released it here or on DTRPG.

What I'd really like to see though would be a reprint of the original 16 page booklets for Magic World, Superworld, and Future World. There were PDF scans of them on basicrps.com so I may have had a look through and I thought they were pretty good. Small, cheap setting booklets that can be combined with a small, cheap rulebook are better IMO than having an enormous, pricey book for each individual setting that basically repeats all the same rules each time.

[Atgxtg]

10 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

That would be neat, though I don't think there's much to the original brp that's different than what's in the current quickstart, besides less skills and higher starting percentages that is. In fact,

Much less. It really is rather underwhelming by itself. 

10 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

I doubt Chaosium would have much of an issue if someone did trim down the quick start rules into what was in the original and released it here or on DTRPG.

Depending on how it was done, I might not matter if they did have an issue. As long as text wasn't copied verbatim, and you gave it a different name, you can create a BRP (or any other RPG) clone. 

10 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

What I'd really like to see though would be a reprint of the original 16 page booklets for Magic World, Superworld, and Future World. There were PDF scans of them on basicrps.com so I may have had a look through and I thought they were pretty good. Small, cheap setting booklets that can be combined with a small, cheap rulebook are better IMO than having an enormous, pricey book for each individual setting that basically repeats all the same rules each time.

I think they might try to redo them, but I doubt they would reissue them. I've been told that today small game books with just the basic rules in a simply but clear layout, and not much setting and art won't sell.