What was the first "house system" from an RPG publisher?

[robertsconley]

One of the challenges universal systems have is that in the attempt to make a universal system it's easy to lose flavor from magic. Fantasy Hero, at least the original, was horrible. Casters had just a handful of spells because they were "powers" not incantations...

Depends on how you build spells, to me the powers as spells was a major selling point of Fantasy Hero 1e. And the reason I ditched was not because of that but rather the normal combat stuff still had too much of the superhero DNA baked into. Starting with Hero 4e it got a lot better but by then I was into GURPS and it was too late unless I ran a superhero campaign.

The trick was understanding how to use limitations and advantages on spells to get the magic system you wanted. Also something that was easier in later editions because they refined the meta-power stuff to anything extraordinary built with the powers system more flexible.

For example one key component for clerical magic for how I used FH 1e was the use of Endurance reserve to power spells. Instead of using the character's endurance you have to draw it from the reserve only. The Endurance Reserve could only be replenished through acts of piety.

GURPS at least initially did really well balancing universal and still offering different forms of magic for fantasy, horror, psionics. Later it seems like they pulled that back somewhat into more generic forms.

Actually GURPS now has two major magic systems the spell based GURPS Magic that more D&Dish, and GURPS Ritual Path which is more low key and representative of real world magic. Plus several documented variants in books like GURPS Thaumatology and their PDF series. Finally they finally got building powers in decent shape with 4e so you can take that route if needed.

The general issues that outside of Ritual Path Magic and GURPS Magic it a build your own system. Those two are the only ready made system for GURPS.

Magic in HERO is challenging, it is far too easy to make spells that feel like powers, but I find that is more of a system mastery issue, than something that has to be. It was possible to make a spell caster in FH that didn't seem like a comic book wizard, but it was more work, and you had to be very creative.

My experience as well. 15 points will get you a 3d6 energy blast that you can cast every turn with a cost in endurance, doing damage on a successful attack roll. But that all it is and 15 points out of a 75 point character is a lot. Now add in stuff like incantation, gestures, or a well thought out package of limitations then you get that spell cost in cp a lot lower and give it flavor.

Considering that most were already familiar with Champions it just added to many making spells that looked like super powers. 1E FH (3E HERO) magic works best for most people with magic that is more special ability, than spell casting. More RQ spirit magic or D&D's laying on hands healing of the paladin. It was possible to make a "real wizard" but took a lot of work and deep knowledge of the rules, and honestly was too much work for most. It also required a much higher power level than the default in those early HERO games so true wizards or sorcerers worked better as NPCs.

I think magic done right in the 1E FH would have meant doing a magic book that was the size of the core FH rules.

Well they did come out with the Grimoire. But it had the same issue as GURPS Magic, functional but bland. However I agree, magic would need to be a source book on it own (like GURPS Ritual Path Magic) to be distinct.

 

[Toadmaster]

I just couldn't get into 4E, I wanted to like it, but just became too much work for me to keep up with. Good to hear that they have embraced separate magic books again. GURPS began with that promise, but then fell into one core magic book during much of the 3E period although as I recall they eventually added a few others, pretty sure there was a Voodoo book before 4E.

I have gone back and forth between HERO and GURPS, so you would think that I would have been thrilled when HERO added some GURPS and GURPS some HERO, but I wasn't happy with the implementation in either case. 80s me would be horrified at the following statement, but I have actually reached a point where more rules, more pages does not make me happy. In both cases I was hopping for tighter, better edited books with more creative use of the existing rules, instead we got kind of bloated rule books, although 4E has brought out some interesting additions.

Early HERO has baffled me, they showed a great deal of creativity in the game, and major genre books (Justice Inc in particular), but then managed to turn in some seriously bland supplements, the 1E FH Grimoire and Magic Items books were so generic and just seemed like bad splat books.

 

[Cross Planes]

While BRP was a distillation of RuneQuest, ONLY Worlds of Wonder sits on BRP as the core of a generic system. All the other 1980s Chaosium games are presented as custom games and may or may not include BRP for reference of the core of the system (most do not actually...).

I don't think BRP becomes marketed independently as a "generic" system until the Big Gold Book.

Why would Worlds of Wonder be ignored? And before the BGB there was a very slim BRP being sold at retail.

When did Chaosium start calling it Basic Role Play?

Additionally, when did Mechanoids, Palladium Fantasy, & Heroes Unlimited hit retail? I believe Kevin stumps for being the first house system/universal rules. Not saying he is right, I just remember his rants.

 

[Toadmaster]

Why would Worlds of Wonder be ignored? And before the BGB there was a very slim BRP being sold at retail.

When did Chaosium start calling it Basic Role Play?

Additionally, when did Mechanoids, Palladium Fantasy, & Heroes Unlimited hit retail? I believe Kevin stumps for being the first house system/universal rules. Not saying he is right, I just remember his rants.

World of Wonder was thin, and kind of bland as I recall, kind of like the original BRP supplement. It also didn't get marketed much and there was no support for it. Basically just the WoW box set and that was it. I remember one of my friends bought it, seemed like a cool idea and he ran a short lived dimension hopping game with it, but new shiny came along (I think we shifted everything to HERO when JI, DI and FH came out). Chaosium was dealing with the RQ AH thing about this same time and I don't think people (customers) were really thinking about universal systems just yet, so I think it needed more fanfare and support than it got.

Compare this to GURPS which came out just a couple years later it was heavily hyped as a one stop shop rule system. SJG put out Man to Man a year before GURPS to help build interest, and once GURPS hit the shelves there were several setting and supplement books out the same year.

 

[Gabriel]

Additionally, when did Mechanoids, Palladium Fantasy, & Heroes Unlimited hit retail? I believe Kevin stumps for being the first house system/universal rules. Not saying he is right, I just remember his rants.

Wikipedia sez:

Original Mechanoids 1981
Palladium Fantasy 1983
Heroes Unlimited (Unrevised) 1984 (although relatively sure my copy has a copyright date of 1985)

Keep in mind that Palladium Fantasy had a slightly different system than Heroes Unlimited. They weren't directly compatible because of various factors. But the "Unrevised" books should all theoretically be compatible with each other and were cross promoted. So I think you can say that as of 1984/1985 that Palladium was actively promoting a universal house system. I forget when exactly they started calling their collective games the "Megaverse" but I do think it predated Rifts.

 

[ffilz]

Why would Worlds of Wonder be ignored? And before the BGB there was a very slim BRP being sold at retail.

When did Chaosium start calling it Basic Role Play?

Additionally, when did Mechanoids, Palladium Fantasy, & Heroes Unlimited hit retail? I believe Kevin stumps for being the first house system/universal rules. Not saying he is right, I just remember his rants.

Mechanoid Invasion hit 1981. Palladium Fantasy in 1983.

RuneQuest is 1978 and very clearly spawned a house system and universal rules.

As I see it the only argument is whether Tunnels & Trolls qualifies, or even D&D. Those are the only things from this list in 1978 or earlier that could qualify:

List of tabletop role-playing games - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Metamorphosis Alpha and Gamma World are earlier, but I don't know of anything else that descended from them so unless they make D&D qualify they're out.

Chivalry and Sorcery spawned Land of the Rising Sun but nothing else, and FGU put out so many different systems that I find it hard to say they could have a house system.

 

[Dyrnwyn]

I am not familiar with M!M!, but I think MSPE is different enough from T&T to qualify as more of an offshoot/derivative than a game using the same system. An 8th level character in one is going to look really different than the other, plus they have different skill systems, ranged combat systems, etc. That's just my personal opinion, though.

 

[Trippy]

World of Wonder was thin, and kind of bland as I recall, kind of like the original BRP supplement. It also didn't get marketed much and there was no support for it. Basically just the WoW box set and that was it. I remember one of my friends bought it, seemed like a cool idea and he ran a short lived dimension hopping game with it, but new shiny came along (I think we shifted everything to HERO when JI, DI and FH came out). Chaosium was dealing with the RQ AH thing about this same time and I don't think people (customers) were really thinking about universal systems just yet, so I think it needed more fanfare and support than it got.

Compare this to GURPS which came out just a couple years later it was heavily hyped as a one stop shop rule system. SJG put out Man to Man a year before GURPS to help build interest, and once GURPS hit the shelves there were several setting and supplement books out the same year.

GURPS came out in 1986, which was four years later than WoW. The blandness of either is not really relevant to the point (one could argue that GURPS was bland too) and the size of the WoW booklets was pretty standard in all box sets of the day. I agree that the notion of having a generic, universal system wasn’t really a big thing at the time, but it was a game that helped establish the concept by the time GURPS came about and popularized the idea. They did expand on SuperWorld, which had its own release in 1983, and Magic World was the basis of Drakar och Demoner which largely established roleplaying as a hobby in Sweden. So you might not have seen game companies like Fria Ligen or games like Kult emerge without it.

 

[Toadmaster]

I am not familiar with M!M!, but I think MSPE is different enough from T&T to qualify as more of an offshoot/derivative than a game using the same system. An 8th level character in one is going to look really different than the other, plus they have different skill systems, ranged combat systems, etc. That's just my personal opinion, though.

I tend to agree. MSPE definitely borrows from T&T, and there were articles about running T&T with MSPE (Tunnels & Thompsons), but I see them as two distinctly different games with some similarities. Plus as far as the OP goes MSPE came out in 1983 by which time Chaosium was well established with games using the same core system.

GURPS came out in 1986, which was four years later than WoW. The blandness of either is not really relevant to the point (one could argue that GURPS was bland too) and the size of the WoW booklets was pretty standard in all box sets of the day. I agree that the notion of having a generic, universal system wasn’t really a big thing at the time, but it was a game that helped establish the concept by the time GURPS came about and popularized the idea. They did expand on SuperWorld, which had its own release in 1983, and Magic World was the basis of Drakar och Demoner which largely established roleplaying as a hobby in Sweden. So you might not have seen game companies like Fria Ligen or games like Kult emerge without it.

Oh, I'm not dismissing it as a solid contender for the first Universal system (in my view Chaosium has that claim solidly locked up) or its impact on the gaming world. What I took from the post I quoted, was why was it ignored. I just think it was a bit ahead of its time, and I kind of think Chaosium gave it the same disinterested treatment that they gave Magic World (the later one, not that included in WoW).
CoC has long been their money maker and RQ their peak interest. They must have been in dire straits to let RQ go to AH or else seriously fumbled their negotiation rolls.

I don't know of any successful universal system that wasn't well supported with supplements so WoW was kind of doomed to languish.