Reading Classic RuneQuest: Basic Role-Playing

I’m back to reading the classic RuneQuest 2nd edition boxed set! See the first and second articles in the series if you missed them. Today we are reading the “Basic Role-Playing” booklet, written by Greg Stafford and Lynn Willis, with a couple illustrations by William Church.

This “introductory guide” to fantasy role-playing (FRP) and the Basic Role-Playing system (BRP) is a 16 pages-long booklet that, we are told, presents a “whole game system”. So in theory, you could completely ignore the rules in the bigger RuneQuest book and just play BRP directly from this. The BRP rules differ quite a lot from the RuneQuest rules, in that they’re much simpler, but you can tell they share the same chassis. I wonder how many early 1980s players decided to simplify aspects of RuneQuest by “downgrading” select rules to their BRP equivalent?

Anyway, let’s dive in!