From: wall@rndhse.enet.dec.com (David F. Wall)
Subject: Re: HARN ?
Followup-To: rec.games.frp.misc 
Keywords: harn, campaign, played
Reply-To: wall@rndhse.enet.dec.com (David F. Wall)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 14:07:05 GMT


In article <1992Nov9.225247.1@wharton.upenn.edu>, millerl@wharton.upenn.edu writes:
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>From: millerl@wharton.upenn.edu
>Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
>Subject: Re: HARN ?
>Message-ID: <1992Nov9.225247.1@wharton.upenn.edu>
>Date: 10 Nov 92 03:52:47 GMT
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In article <1992Nov9.225247.1@wharton.upenn.edu>, millerl@wharton.upenn.edu writes:
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>From: millerl@wharton.upenn.edu
>Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
>Subject: Re: HARN ?
>Message-ID: <1992Nov9.225247.1@wharton.upenn.edu>
>Date: 10 Nov 92 03:52:47 GMT
>References: <17225@mindlink.bc.ca> <1992Nov7.161744.2416@vax1.mankato.msus.edu> <ESCHNEID.92Nov7200519@sparc49.tamu.edu> <1992Nov8.025806.1@wharton.upenn.edu> <BxH20I.LDD@rice.edu>
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Loren Miller asks,

>And then Robert gives a long rave review of Harn. I have a lot of Harn
>material, including most of the stuff you mention, Robert, but I wanted
>to hear fluff, war stories, anecdotes about campaigns that you have
>played in Lythia. Have you played Harn, or just read it (like me)?
>

Well, I've played in it, and it was the best campaign I've ever been in.
The Harn material goes a long way toward helping a referee lay out a great
campaign, because it has an unmatched (I think) level of detail, it's 
consistent, it's clear.  We played under GURPS, and aside from a fundamental
mismatch between a lot of 'official' GURPS magic and magic as it's laid out
for Harn, there weren't serious problems with it.

And just because it's detailed, it doesn't save you from work, as a referee
or a player.  Really playing to the notions of propriety in a medieval
society is not easy.  (Well, it's easier if you're nobility).  Being a
magician is hard.  In a properly staged Harn game the people aroung you
are church-going, god-or-goddess fearing folk and it can be a real illustration
of the way religion impacted the lives of people.  That isn't really limiting,
though.  It's helpful.  It defines characters in dimensions that are usually
ignored.  It was not uncommon for players to have multiple characters.  I had
three characters, a knight, a mage, and a ex-gladiator.

Also, we had a lot of things in the campaign that you never seem to see in
RPGs.  People courted, got married, had families, lived lives other than
whacking at things.

We were also set in what would be considered recent history of the area.
Harn stuff is set up so that it describes things circa the year 720 by the
local calendar.  Our campaign was set in the years 680-700, in Kanday, during
the reign of Andasin III.  That meant there was buckets of published stuff we
as players had to sedulously avoid in order to keep from spoiling surprises.
We probably have the largest collection of Harn material purchased but left in
its shrink wrap on the eastern seaboard.  And we rewrote history a little.  You
can't let all that detail rob you of your flexibility.

Someday pretty soon, the guy who ran that campaign will probably be on the net,
and he could tell you even more about it.  And maybe all the chronicles will
get finished.

--
David F. Wall (Digital Equipment Corp., Nashua, NH)
 
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