Sparkling new copy of Harnmaster

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robertsconley

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Columbia Games decided it was time to spruce up their Harnmaster boxed set and order a new printing. You can get on the action on kickstarter.

Harnmaster has long been one of my favorite RPGs. You can read a detailed account of a session in my 911 call from the Attic post.

It a skill based system that uses a d100. It oriented heavily towards the medieval side of fantasy compared to other fantasy RPGs. It combat system is without comparison for how realistic it feels yet remaining playable. The key is a set of well laid out charts that make resolution a snap and bloody.

It also a combat system without hit points. Characters suffer injuries which reduce skills levels as well as a force a saving throw. The saves are where the bad things happen like shock, stumble, fumble, and of course the dreaded kill result.

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Hmm, I already have most of that in cardstock already (Except the Pilot’s Almanac in paper).

Is there any difference in rules, or just art?
 
$2000 for the all-in tier!

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The funny thing is, with the sheer amount of Harnmaster stuff they have amassed over the years, that’s a good deal considering it’s print.

I actually don't doubt that. I've seen just some of the Harnworld stuff over the years, and it's not only expansive, but incredibly high quality. The maps alone are works of art, and printed on incredibly high-quality cardstock. You are quite literally getting an entire world. Just before work took him south of the border, Trevor ( Devil Devil of Me, Myself, and Die) was going to run a Harnworld campaign using RuneQuest 6th - it's a damn shame that never came to fruition.

Still, $2000 smackeroos is aLOT of moolah to dish out in one go. I don't think I even spent that much on the Kingdom Death KS
 
I actually don't doubt that. I've seen just some of the Harnworld stuff over the years, and it's not only expansive, but incredibly high quality. The maps alone are works of art, and printed on incredibly high-quality cardstock. You are quite literally getting an entire world. Just before work took him south of the border, Trevor ( Devil Devil of Me, Myself, and Die) was going to run a Harnworld campaign using RuneQuest 6th - it's a damn shame that never came to fruition.

Still, $2000 smackeroos is aLOT of moolah to dish out in one go. I don't think I even spent that much on the Kingdom Death KS

I did actually run two Harnmaster 3rd ed. campaigns with my other group before I left, set in Chybisa and Orbaal, respectively (the RQ6 was going to be set up in Ivinia - I’m glad you got a taste of that system, I've seen your other posts liking it). HM3 is hands-down my favorite system (modified rather heavily by various house rules, naturally!)

$2k is madness. Luckily I own literally everything ever printed for Harn since 1982 or so.
 
Hmm, I already have most of that in cardstock already (Except the Pilot’s Almanac in paper).

Is there any difference in rules, or just art?
A small amount of errata was corrected, it now color, and new art. I am getting the rules boxed set, for both the new color layout, the cardstock, and a new box.
 
Still, $2000 smackeroos is aLOT of moolah to dish out in one go. I don't think I even spent that much on the Kingdom Death KS
I have pretty much all of the stuff release starting back in the mid 80s. At present not counting the Kelestia material, it amounts to 24 inches of binders all pretty much stuff. The biggest binder I have is the Kingdom of Kaldor which comes in at 4 inches to hold everything.
 
I did actually run two Harnmaster 3rd ed. campaigns with my other group before I left, set in Chybisa and Orbaal, respectively (the RQ6 was going to be set up in Ivinia - I’m glad you got a taste of that system, I've seen your other posts liking it). HM3 is hands-down my favorite system (modified rather heavily by various house rules, naturally!)

Yeah, you introduced me to RQ6 and I was impressed enough to run a game using it, and quickly fell in love. I still consider it the best fantasy RPG I've played.

I've never played or read Harnmaster though, will have to look into it further.

$2k is madness. Luckily I own literally everything ever printed for Harn since 1982 or so.

I imagine 80s prices over a period of time were nowhere near as harsh. It'd be a fun purchase (just to get everything at once) if it was even a little financially viable, but not while I'm still in University, that's for sure.
 
Question from a Harn noob - how complete is the core game, and do the supplements add much essential material? Are the KS bundles a good intro, or would I be better picking and mixing?

Ok, that was three questions...
 
Question from a Harn noob - how complete is the core game, and do the supplements add much essential material? Are the KS bundles a good intro, or would I be better picking and mixing?

The Core rules are complete as far as playing warriors, rogues, professionals, go. They also offer have support for Barbarian, Shek P'var (mages), and religious types (priests). However their respective supplements has really needed to get the full use out of those character types. For example Barbarian describes each of the Harnic tribes along with notes and shamanic powers. Harnmaster Magic has the magic system and fully explains the different options in Character. As well as Harnmaster Religion.

This is all covered in Characters in the rulebook. There is a skill chapter which goes hand in hand with the Character stuff. You will be referring to Skills more often in play. Harnmaster tends to frontload as much as it can onto the character sheet. Skills use a d100 roll low system with any roll ending a 0 or 5 is a critical result. Attributes vary around a 3d6 die roll and in Skills are used in various tasks with a multiplier like roll under STR X 4 to lift more STR x 10 lbs and less than or equal to STR x 14 lbs.

The combat section is completed, and pretty much it own thing in terms of other d100 systems. There are no hit points, instead injury is tracked and reduces your skill. When you suffer injury you always have to roll a save of some sort. For example a shock roll or become incapacitated. The saves get worse the more injuries you suffer. There are several optional rules that can add details like bloodloss or can be ignored.

Next is Physicians which basically covers healing from the injuries you suffer above. I recommend brushing up on handling downtime because it will take a while for characters to heals. In a recent session I ran, a character survived a grievous slash to the abdomen. It took him a month to heal. Worse the players were guarding a merchant trading among barbarians so had to work out a way to stay in the village until he was better. Got real lucky that he didn't develop an infections.

So lest that scares you into thinking OMG how complex is Harnmaster. The way it works is that after the battle, character bind up or treat their wounds. This produces a Healing Rate . Then every 5 days you make a healing roll (HR x Endurance stat) and if you succeed your injury goes down Once the injury goes to zero you are healed. What the player in my example had to worry about was rolling a Critical Failure as his injury is considered an open wound. If that happened it would become infection.

Obviously this is more bookkeeping then Classic D&D or The Fantasy Trip but N Robin Crossby did a brilliant job of keeping it to a minimum and straight forward. The Physican article is only 4 pages long and first page is devoted to some setting information on Harnic physicians. So the mechanics only occupy 3 pages.

Next is Psionics. I have to be honest I don't know many who use it. But NRC wrote it in and it been there through all three editions. This article is complete.

Next is Campaign which gets into stuff you need for running a campaign like tracking time, handling terrain, encounters, etc.

Next is Treasure including magic items called artifacts.

Last is a barebone Bestiary along with three Bestiary articles that flesh out Garguns (Harnic Orcs), Ivashu (unique monsters), and Yelgri (Harnic Harpy but more like a Gargoyle than what D&D uses). The three articles give a taste of what you get if buy any of the other Bestiary articles.

All of the articles have comments and notes about medieval life and life on Harn woven in.

So the rest of the Harnmaster line are both essential in that they cover an important part of what people think ought to be in a fantasy campaign like magic and divine powers. But also not essential because Harn is first and foremost a medieval fantasy. So there is a lot of mileage to had with just the core book. For example Harnmaster Magic has the detail on spellcasting but it clear from the core that the Shek P'var are pretty much a way of life unto themselves. The same with the various churches of Harn.

As for the KS the $99 bundle is about giving you one of the four listed books for free. Core Rules, Magic, Religion, and the Bestiary. The $199 bundle expands this out to include Harnmanor, the Pilot's Almanac and HarnWorld.

The whole line is pricey but modular. Because is so involved in being a Medieval Fantasy (hear those capitals fall) it quite useful for other systems. For example Harnmanor or Pilot's Almanac can be used in a D&D 5e campaign. The Bestiary articles are more about description and ideas than stat blocks, 75% description, 25% mechanics. The most Harnmaster specific are the Core rules, and Magic. Religion is half and half. Part of it useful if you like the Harnic Pantheon for a D&D campaign, part of it is HM specific. Magic however is more like 75% mechanics and 25% description.

Finally everybody involved puts their heart into it. Harn these days is mostly written by a Writers team managed by Columbia Games. Yes the prices are high, but I can still use what I bought in 1985 with the stuff they put out today. Much of my Majestic Wilderlands in a sense considered to be Harn but with a slightly higher level of fantasy.






Ok, that was three questions...
Fire away if you have more.
 
Tell me about the rabbits, George...
Well Harn has Coneys, and Hares, they both can bite and kick about a much as the blunt end of edge only sword like a falchion or being whacked with the the flat side of a dagger blade. Their fur doesn't provide much protection.

A live rabbit/hare is between 1 to 2d (1d = 1 silver penny)
Their hide worth 1d but if you get a arctic hare skinned it worth 1 1/2d
Their meat provide 1 meal and is worth 1d.

So the deal with this article is that it was produced as part of an Easter promotion a couple of years back. There are a handful of short articles like bats that were produced for similar reasons. As you can see they made it look as nice as their other article and the text has information on how rabbits and hares were used in a medieval society.

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see, I'd like something like that if it included the symbolism, folklore, and mythological/heraldric significance of the animals as well as the biological data/game stats, especially for a medieval-themed game
 
robertsconley robertsconley that's fantastic, thank you!

What I'm taking away is that the specific supplements have a ton of detail when your campaign wanders into running a medieval manor, or piloting a ship, or running mages, but the core is a solid game.

Mechanics sound reasonable, and I love games where PCs have to think about healing and actual wound effects.

Usable material always ages well too. Will think about this one. Thanks again!
 
A friend of mine set his AD&D campaigns in Harn. I fell in love with the world and later on, I bought the first edition of the RPG Harnmaster expecting the same quality that had been put in the setting. Instead I got an incredibly convoluted and uninspiring system combining the worst aspects of D&D, Rolemaster, Runequest, Fantasy Hero, Marvel Super Heroes RPG and Warhammer. It seemed to have been designed with care, but Robin Crossby was obviously a lot better at world building than game designing.

Some years ago I found a second edition of Harnmaster in the used section of LGS and to my dismay, it looked at least as bland as the original.
But to this day, the core setting material for Harn is still one of my main source of inspiration for world building. I'M happy they have kept the system and the setting material separate.
 
What parts of it were inspired by Marvel Super Heroes?
 
robertsconley robertsconley that's fantastic, thank you!

What I'm taking away is that the specific supplements have a ton of detail when your campaign wanders into running a medieval manor, or piloting a ship, or running mages, but the core is a solid game.

Mechanics sound reasonable, and I love games where PCs have to think about healing and actual wound effects.

Usable material always ages well too. Will think about this one. Thanks again!

As I said above, HM3 is my favorite game. It is highly customizable, too, as all of the optional rules allow you to fine-tune the experience to whatever you desire.

My default version of Harn (and the way I ran Harnmaster) was highly influenced by the early Song of Ice and Fire books: lots of political intrigue, everyday life events and challenges in a believable s**t-covered medieval world, and quick, brutal combats with real consequences. That said, the game is actually not that deadly for PCs - it takes quite a bit to actually kill a character. Which is great, because it makes it a little more forgiving. But the fear of festering, infected wounds that threaten your arm with amputation.... ah, the sadistic glory that is Harnmaster! :grin:

As far as overall complexity, I find the game to perfectly fit my Return on Investment. That is, it is just complex enough to provide wonderfully detailed combats (for example), but streamlined enough to play them out quickly. That is really the one thing that makes me recommend it over RQ 6 (or Mythras now, I guess). As much as I enjoy Mythras, its just ever so slightly too complex for the kinds of detail I get from it. For me, HM3 scratches that itch perfectly.

A warning, however: it was very much designed by "old school" players, and their focus is not quite the same as those who brought us the Big Damn Heroes of modern-day D&D. If the characters wind up being something special, it's not because of fancy class powers, it's because they earned it!

(You damn kids get off my lawn as I yell at the clouds, etc etc etc)
 
A warning, however: it was very much designed by "old school" players, and their focus is not quite the same as those who brought us the Big Damn Heroes of modern-day D&D. If the characters wind up being something special, it's not because of fancy class powers, it's because they earned it!
To expand on what I said before, the players were once town guards in the city of Aleath in the Kingdom of Kanday. They left in good standing deciding to leave after their terms is up to make their way in the world. They had to get out of town because they stumbled on a secret Morgathian priest and his basement temple. The priest's day job was a minor merchant working for Damaen of Hilome a wealthy merchant who also imports illicit drugs from the city of Golotha a city known for its depravity and evil temples. Damean has the constable of the royal castle, Caer Erynroth helping him smuggled. The constable Sir Denil Cahahryn happens to be the player's ex-commanding officer as he is also the head of the City Guard on a day to day basis.

So while exploring the priest's basement they stumbled on a captured barbarian tribesmen, Orsin of the Gozyda. They rescued Orsin and then went to their former sergeant to explain what happened. The sergeant formed up the players and some of his men and went to arrest the merchant. Upon arriving the sergeant realized that the merchant was in the pay of Damaen and called off the arrest.

The players realized they were in a mess, luckily prior to this they asked around for job and one of them was another merchant needing guards to escort him into Gozyda territory to trade. So the PCs took up that job and got out of Aleath pronto taking Orsin along with them.

So they went into the wilderness did a few thing along with guarding the merchants. At one point they were in a Gozyda village when a storm struck. It uprooted an ancient tree exposing a forgotten barrow. Plus that night after the storm everybody was afflicted with nightmares so something was up. The players volunteer to explored the barrow and found a pair of grave wights (Harnic Ghouls) who slipped in to feed on the old bones inside. When the wights attacked on of them got a critical success, and the player rolled a critical failure. This resulted in the character abodemen being ripped open by its claws, a grievous injury in Harn terms. Luckily the players has a high endurance so was able to move back while the other members of the group out out the wights.

As a result the group had to stay in the village for a month while the character healed up.

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I really want to get in on this, but the shipping cost to Canada is really high. I know those are the going rates but $70 US shipping cost is making me hesitate. Add the inevitable customs charge on top...I backed, and cancelled and almost backed again twice now.
 
A friend of mine set his AD&D campaigns in Harn. I fell in love with the world and later on, I bought the first edition of the RPG Harnmaster expecting the same quality that had been put in the setting. Instead I got an incredibly convoluted and uninspiring system combining the worst aspects of D&D, Rolemaster, Runequest, Fantasy Hero, Marvel Super Heroes RPG and Warhammer. It seemed to have been designed with care, but Robin Crossby was obviously a lot better at world building than game designing.

Some years ago I found a second edition of Harnmaster in the used section of LGS and to my dismay, it looked at least as bland as the original.
But to this day, the core setting material for Harn is still one of my main source of inspiration for world building. I'M happy they have kept the system and the setting material separate.

I felt the same way the first time I looked at Harnmaster decades ago. But I have a PDF of it and now I'm finding I like it. A lot.

Not sure what happened to me in the decades between, but today Harnmaster with its player characters of flesh and bone with flaws and difficulties facing both the dangers of men as well as monsters while pursuing their own goals really appeals to me. I can smell the straw, dung, and leather as horses are saddled, enjoy the comforting weight of armor and axe, and feel the fear and thrill of going into danger guided only by my mind or brawn and backed up by a few hardy companions.



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I really want to get in on this, but the shipping cost to Canada is really high. I know those are the going rates but $70 US shipping cost is making me hesitate. Add the inevitable customs charge on top...I backed, and cancelled and almost backed again twice now.

That's weird, isn't Columbia Games a Canadian company?
 
maybe their distribution fulfillment centre is in the US
 
A lot of Canadian gaming companies like to get paid in US dollars. RAFM certainly does. Really, I wish there was a better way to support them in retail but most don't like handing out a retailer discount. With the Covid border closure I keep thinking there should be a way to take advantage of the unavailablity of American products for Canadian companies but I haven't figured it out yet.
 
Columbia Games was originally based in Vancouver when Robin lived there, but I think after the split with Kelestia they moved their head office to Seattle.
 
I really want to get in on this, but the shipping cost to Canada is really high. I know those are the going rates but $70 US shipping cost is making me hesitate. Add the inevitable customs charge on top...I backed, and cancelled and almost backed again twice now.


Yeah, I'm actually quite intrigued by the game, but just the basic boxed set is $111 with shipping

And I wouldn't want JUST the basic boxed set.

In the words of Hall & Oats..."I can't go for that...nooOOOoo..no can do I"

I may just do some online used bookseller searches instead
 
I'm super tempted because I'm kind of a sucker for a cool d100 RPG and I already own and like a few Harnworld PDFs. But there's a part of me that knows, deep down, it's going to look very pretty on a shelf and probably not come out to play. Seems especially true knowing that Lyonesse drops in a week. (On the other hand I'm one of the fortunate ones that isn't staring down the barrel of unemployment and I'm saving more money than ever with bars and restaurants shut down).

Decisions decisions . . .
 
Shipping kills it for me too, along with customs fees and postal charge (The Post Office charges you to tell you that you have fees on a parcel from abroad...). Core rules alone would be £80+, cheaper to buy the PDF and a cheap laser printer! The $199 set comes out to approximately £250 - actually better value for money in many ways.

Leisure Games is pretty much out. Just checked some second-hand game shops - it's cheaper to buy the damn books from the KS!

Thought I'd take a look at the PDFs on Columbia Games and DriveThru. Just as expensive!

Gods, this is pushing me to getting a big set of books I don't need and won't play... :sweat:
 
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With regards to Hârn modularity: if you're a setting tinkerer, there's no need to get anything else than the HârnWorld module. It goes over the setting at a fairly low resolution, leaving you plenty to fill in as you please. If you want more detail, the regional modules are fantastic and detailed, but do restrict the setting further if you want to keep everything "canon", not that I advise trying. There's a temptation among Hârn newbies to be reluctant to change what they view as a kind of sacrosanct thing: the setting itself. Robin wouldn't have advised such a thing. It's your Hârn, do what you want with it. If you want an alien spaceship to crash into Thardic Senate, then go for it!
 
With regards to Hârn modularity: if you're a setting tinkerer, there's no need to get anything else than the HârnWorld module. It goes over the setting at a fairly low resolution, leaving you plenty to fill in as you please. If you want more detail, the regional modules are fantastic and detailed, but do restrict the setting further if you want to keep everything "canon", not that I advise trying. There's a temptation among Hârn newbies to be reluctant to change what they view as a kind of sacrosanct thing: the setting itself. Robin wouldn't have advised such a thing. It's your Hârn, do what you want with it. If you want an alien spaceship to crash into Thardic Senate, then go for it!
And there's no overarching meta-story either. They've always kept their promise to never publish anything that happens after the current year, 720TR. They're very big on the "P-Harn", your personal version of Harn. Do whatever you wish with it, without fear of a world-shattering event that undoes all of your world building (*cough* Forgotten Realms *cough*).
 
Yeah, I'm actually quite intrigued by the game, but just the basic boxed set is $111 with shipping

And I wouldn't want JUST the basic boxed set.

In the words of Hall & Oats..."I can't go for that...nooOOOoo..no can do I"

I may just do some online used bookseller searches instead
You mean you don’t have two grand lying around (plus a few hundred for shipping)?
 
You mean you don’t have two grand lying around (plus a few hundred for shipping)?

lol, I could not even afford the shipping if they did ship to Canada, which apparently they do not.
 
Time enough for frivolous purchases once I've graduated, and have a 9-to-5 job wearing a suit and spending my days in a cubicle. :smile:
 
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